Todays AFR
Mining entrepreneur Tim Goyder became Australia’s newest paper billionaire on Wednesday after the first two days of what, by Thursday evening, could be a remarkable critical minerals treble.The lithium developer that counts Mr Goyder as chairman and 17 per cent shareholder, Liontown Resources, will on Thursday publish a feasibility study into a new Australian lithium mine and hopes to spark the sort of market frenzy generated by Tuesday’s news that Mr Goyder’s Chalice Mining had made one of the best Australian mineral discoveries since the turn of the century.The 35 per cent rally in Chalice shares over the past two days sparked a 26 per cent rally in a third company that counts Mr Goyder as chairman and major shareholder, Devex Resources, which is searching for critical minerals close to Chalice in Western Australia’s Julimar province.The huge week of corporate activity for Mr Goyder, who owns close to 12 per cent of Chalice and has stakes in other ASX-listed companies such as Minerals 260, took his paper wealth narrowly past $1 billion during Wednesday’s trading session.“I don’t believe it. I am the same person, I have got my feet firmly on the ground,” he said, when asked how the billionaire label felt.Advertisement“It is not only about the money. I have aspired to make discoveries and create something and we have done that.“I find that part very invigorating, I am a man of simple means; I like a nice bottle of red and lots of laughs.”Chalice’s Gonneville deposit in the Julimar province near Perth contains four of the minerals that the United States Geological Survey has dubbed “critical” to US national security and economic growth: platinum, palladium, nickel and cobalt.Gonneville’s other two metals, copper and gold, are among the most sought after by investors, and the combination of those six metals at shallow depth within 70 kilometres of Perth prompted veteran analysts to declare it the best discovery of platinum-group elements they had ever seen.Mining might be one of Australia’s oldest industries, but Mr Goyder said it had a bright future in a world where governments were determined to secure mineral supply chains and decarbonise their economies.“I think the endowment of nickel, lithium and rare earths in Australia is just outstanding,” he said. “Being a Western country we are going to be playing a very large part in smart technology, electric vehicles, the whole gambit.“We are really well set. We just need governments to be very supportive and we can build on it as an industry.“It would be great to see more downstream processing here and that is certainly something both Chalice and Liontown will be looking at.”The construction of a plant to process Liontown’s lithium-rich spodumene rock into battery-grade lithium hydroxide within Western Australia is expected to be part of Thursday’s feasibility study.Growing appetiteThe US and Australian governments have shown a growing appetite for funding mineral explorers. The US Department of Defence has helped rare earths producer Lynas Corporation while the Morrison government established a $2 billion fund in September that will lend money to critical minerals projects.While geopolitical alliances and tensions have stoked government support for critical minerals, the government action Chalice most wants is mundane by comparison. The company is awaiting permission from the WA government to drill a prospective exploration hole in a section of state forest close to Gonneville.Aside from the forest, Gonneville is close to communities like Toodyay and the Chittering Valley, which are better known for hobby farms, tree-changers and vineyards than mining.But Mr Goyder said he was confident Chalice’s big plans for the region would be embraced.“The moment we made the discovery we put people on the ground there who are working with the community and we have a very good relationship with the community,” he said.Federal resources minister Keith Pitt said government agencies like Geoscience Australia had played a role in Chalice’s success through programs that provided geological information that helped steer explorers to the most prospective targets.“The Mineral Potential Mapper project drew on previously unseen patterns in Australian geology to predict where new deposits of nickel, copper and platinum group sulphides could be uncovered, including in areas where no deposits were previously thought to exist,” he said.”Chalice has stated publicly this work by Geoscience Australia was the catalyst for the company to acquire prospective ground holdings north-east of Perth.“Investing in pre-competitive data acquisition is a long-term game, but this case study shows how it can pay off.”Liontown shares were worth just 10¢ in June 2020, but the stock has rallied more than 18-fold since it started proving up a large lithium resource near the WA town of Leinster during a period when prices for the battery mineral surged.Boom conditionsBenchmark Mineral Intelligence said the spodumene concentrate produced by most Australian mines was fetching an average of $US1300 a tonne in October; up from about $US400 in September 2020.Prices may yet go higher, with Orocobre saying it was negotiating prices closer to $US1600 a tonne for deliveries in January.The boom conditions for lithium stocks helped lithium aspirant Greentech Metals to post an impressive result on its first day of trading on the ASX on Wednesday.Shares in the explorer closed 56 per cent higher than its initial public offering price at 39¢.Greentech, which is led by former Pilbara Minerals founder John Young and counts US commodity trader AMCI as its biggest shareholder, is developing spodumene assets in Canada.
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