Interesting article from Investor Intel yesterday, titled "International Lithium landmarks core resources through major partnerships": Early stage exploration projects have a lot to prove, and there are numerous routes to securing adequate investment. Some succeed by funding the best refinement tech, others will bank on rumours of exceptional product-grades, and, very rarely, even management will be the clincher. The most successful companies, however, will secure competitive advantages in multiple strategic directions. While others begin to struggle in increasing competition, International Lithium Corp. (TSXV: ILC) (“International Lithium”) have begun to make landmark, if initial, progress on their core resources in collaboration with major international partners.
Having placed bets on a variety of lithium stashes in key locations, International Lithium quickly attracted the attention of Ganfeng, the Chinese manufacturer of a myriad of lithium-based products spanning almost every scientific industry; in the run-up to Tesla’s increasing capacity, they are already taking good care of a select few juniors, and last year increased their stake in International Lithium to 18.1% precisely to advance their particular catalogue.
The last time we talked about International Lithium, they were powering through the Mavis Lake drill program in the middle of the Canadian winter with project partner Pioneer Resources, the results of which will be important for a couple of reasons; these particular pegmatite projects are promising due to their geology, having some of the widest dispersion halo formations in the world, so confirmation of unusual lithium density would be great news. Additionally, the company is clearly mulling over exactly where to focus its energies, and preliminary resource calculations will be what collapses the probability cloud into a decision.
