AKE merger is now over. Let's see if they commence exploration...

AKE merger is now over. Let's see if they commence exploration around Bald hIll and TOR's tenements


‘We’ll be opportunistic’: Allkem chair Peter Coleman keeps watchful eye over WA’s bustling lithium landscape

Peter Coleman — about to become chair of the world’s third biggest lithium producer — says WA’s white hot sector is on the radar for new growth prospects, as investors get behind his company’s $16b merger with NYSE-listed Livent.

The former Woodside Energy chief executive on Tuesday oversaw Allkem’s shareholder vote on the proposed merger which passed with a clear majority, clearing a key hurdle for the homegrown lithium success story and US chemicals player Livent to join forces as Arcadium.

With a suite of international lithium developments and chemicals processing operations set to come under the new company banner, Mr Coleman said Arcadium’s size, scale and diversity would be unmatched in the global marketplace.

In WA, the company owns the Mt Cattlin operation in Ravensthorpe, where it recently secured an extension to operate the mine for at least another four years to 2027.

On the local exploration front it has exploration tenements near Bald Hill, an operating lithium mine which Chris Ellison’s Mineral Resources has moved swiftly on snapping up from liquidators in recent months.

Despite not having a firm growth project in the State, Mr Coleman suggested Arcadia had plenty of other pots on the boil — including an advanced spodumene project in Canada’s burgeoning James Bay region — giving the company “a choice” in terms of when it would splash cash.

“At the moment we’ve got growth projects in Argentina and Canada — we don’t have in WA —we’ve got a life extension project in WA and we have unexplored tenements in WA,” he said.

“We’ve got a large tenement position surrounding Bald Hill, which there’s been a lot of activity around recently but we don’t have a defined resource there that would lead to development.”

He described WA’s deal environment as “pretty hot” and said the recent deal activity was a vote of confidence in the long-term viability of the sector — which has seen the likes of local billionaires and international producers fight hard to secure local prospects.

‘For us, we now have the advantage that because we’ve got a tremendous organic growth program n front of us and lots of opportunities, the fact that we’re in three geographies gives us choice as to when we spend our money,” he said.

“I would just say WA stays on our radar screen, but we’ll be opportunistic.”

Allkem also owns the Olaroz and Sal de Vida lithium brine operations, as well as the Cauchari mineral resource, in Argentina, along with a lithium hydroxide conversion facility in Japan. Livent has manufacturing facilities in North Carolina, England, Argentina and China.
Allkem was born out of the $4b merger between Orocobre and Galaxy Resources in 2021 and shareholders will own about 56 per cent of the new company.

About 89.3 per cent of the votes cast were in favour of the scrip merger first announced in May, which needed a 75 per cent to pass. Livent shareholders will cast their vote in New York on Thursday and the deal will then move to Federal Court for final approval.