does ths effect sayona at all?Pilbara Minerals is understood to...

does ths effect sayona at all?

Pilbara Minerals is understood to have hired RBC Capital Markets’ resources bankers to weigh a tilt at dual-listed explorer Patriot Battery Metals, whose Corvette lithium project in Quebec is due to put out an initial mineral resource in July.

Sources said Patriot Battery Metals had its long-time adviser Macquarie Capital taking Pilbara through a data room. It’s understood discussions have centred on potential offtake agreements, joint ventures and equity investment.

There was no certainty that talks between the two parties would lead to a deal, whatever form it may take, sources said. Also, Pilbara wasn’t the only party in the data room, with other tyrekickers also considering Patriot’s claims to owning one the world’s highest-grade and largest hard-rock lithium projects under exploration.

It would be interesting to see what Pilbara Minerals makes of Patriot Battery Metals reaction to claims made in a short seller report published past week.

Patriot’s share price climb – still up 121 per cent on the ASX year-to-date even after Friday’s selloff – has been astonishing to fundies when it’s yet to go into production and make any revenue. But last week, Night Market Research claimedlithium reserves were 40 per cent lower than stated, a comprehensive resource update had been delayed seven times, and the stock was subject to periodic buyout rumours.

Patriot had $56.7 million cash at March end and made a $10.1 million loss for the year.

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Macquarie Capital’s sell-side analysts have a $2.30 price target for the stock, according to a research note published on July 5 after drilling results at CV13 target. Shares closed at $1.64 apiece on Friday, after tumbling 7.4 per cent in the day’s trading.

It expects Patriot to begin producing in mid-2028, and has pegged a 690,000 tonnes a year spodumene concentrate production rate from the mining inventory from Corvette’s CV5 Pegmatite. The analysts said potential joint processing approach using ores from both CV5 and CV13 presented upside to their base case forecasts.

Pilbara’s interest in Patriot comes as the lithium producer, which is capitalised at $14.6 billion on the ASX, ramps up efforts to diversify from just mining to producing battery-ready lithium hydroxide.

It recently hired Macquarie Capital to begin a global search for a new partner to build a processing plant which would convert spodumene to battery-ready lithium hydroxide. It is already building a 43,000-tonne plant in South Korea’s Gwangyang with Korean metals giant POSCO at a $US800 million ($1.2 billion) cost.

Its Pilgangoora asset in Western Australia is a globally significant hard-rock deposit, and has grown production by 250 per cent since 2019 to build the company a $2.7 billion cash balance.