Mining project in Nord-du-Québec | Patriot perseveres despite the fall in the price of lithium

The depressed price of lithium does not distract the metal exploration company of Patriot battery. Without dismantling, the stock market company is refining the feasibility study of its Shaakichiuwaanaan project (formerly Corvette) in North-du-Québec.

Expected in the third quarter, the document will detail the economic parameters concerning the future lithium mine as well as the production of sprodule, a lithium concentrate.

Lithium is used to make cathodes, the positive pole of lithium-ion batteries of an electric car.

Located 40 kilometers from the LG4 hydroelectric power station, the mining project consists of producing 400,000 tonnes of sprodule per year from a pit, in a first phase. An investment estimated at $ 640 million, in a 2024 study.

The ore would take the road to around 800 kilometers to arrive in Matagami where the sprodule is loaded on a train towards the port of Bécancour or Quebec. On this subject, Patriot plans to use doubles trucks with a capacity of 75 tonnes (2 times 37.5 tonnes), which is equivalent to just under 10,600 trips per year (or approximately 30 trips per day).

There is also planned a second later phase which would add 400,000 tonnes to the annual production of Sprodumène, but, this time, from underground production.

At 800,000 tonnes per year, Shaakichiuwaanaan would become 4^e Important lithium mine in the world. The lifespan of the mine is estimated at 24 years.

Recently, the company has recovered samples which conceal significant contents on a considerable area of ​​cesium and tantalum, critical and strategic metals.

“The presence of a significant mineralization of cesium in Shaakichiuwaanaan, in addition to lithium and tantalum, reinforces the incredible wealth of geology and the potential of other critical and strategic metals to improve and further diversify the economic value of the project,” said Ken Brinsden, patriot boss, in a press release published on June 10.

In fact, the potential economic exploitation of two minerals and by-products would lower the production cost of the ton of spoodnes currently estimated at US $ 593, according to a preliminary economic study dating from 2024.

Keep the course despite a floor price

If the leaders of Patriot always have their eyes on the objective, its shareholders suffer, because thus goes the price of the sprudural, thus goes the course of the action of Patriot.

For example, in June 2023, when the ton of Sproducene sold US $ 3,500, Patriot was sold for $ 18, while in last December, when Volkswagen took a strategic participation of 9.9 % in the Canadian company, the sprodumene sold around US $ 720 per tonne and Patriot, $ 2.65.

Recently, Patriot’s action was sold at a price of $ 2.29 and sprodule at US $ 625 per tonne. The price of the concentrate is weighed down by the slowdown in the increase in demand for electric vehicles worldwide, especially since the election of Donald Trump in the United States.