Overview
It is no secret the world is staring down a looming lithium deficit. Even when each single lithium undertaking presently in pre-production have been to be made operational by 2030, there’ll nonetheless be a minimum of a ten p.c provide hole — lithium manufacturing could even hit a hard cap in 2027.
Stated hole might hobble efforts to transition to net-zero and embrace clear power. Lithium is arguably one of the vital vital battery metals the place sustainability is anxious. A key element in electrical automobile batteries, lithium can be a substantial limiting issue of their manufacturing.
A part of the issue is the present state of the worldwide lithium provide chain. China presently controls roughly 70 percent of global lithium production regardless of solely supplying 13 p.c of the world’s lithium. Difficult this dominance requires the institution of each home manufacturing and a home provide chain for lithium. Extra importantly, it requires the capability to swiftly carry giant portions of spodumene lithium to market.
Having seen the writing on the wall, North Arrow Minerals (TSXV:NAR) is leveraging its many years of expertise and information exploring for sources in Canada’s north to grab the chance within the fast-growing lithium market and produce to manufacturing a number of highly-promising spodumene pegmatite deposits in Northern Canada.
North Arrow, in spite of everything, has a bonus over different junior mining firms trying to capitalize on the lithium market. The corporate has had an in depth presence in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories for a few years now. Its management is greater than conversant in the numerous challenges of mining within the north.
Extra importantly, North Arrow’s management has established and maintained robust relationships with each provincial governments and group leaders. When the corporate must survey a web site or go to a undertaking, it does not ship consultants. It ensures its personal folks have boots on the bottom.
That is one of many causes North Arrow is a two-time winner of the Nunavut Mining Symposium Company Award. These group connections alongside North Arrow’s experience have already served it properly. It has, to date, established three main lithium tasks within the North — DeStaffanay, Baffin Island and Bathurst Inlet.
Of those, DeStaffanay is the corporate’s flagship and the useful resource with the best potential to quickly carry spodumene lithium to market. Efficiently staked at a considerably decrease value than its counterparts, the undertaking hosts some extremely promising lithium mineralization. It additionally has the advantage of being situated on the shoreline of Nice Slave Lake, making certain easy accessibility through barge, whereas previous spodumene exposures, because of historic mining efforts, streamline each drilling and pattern assortment.
A complicated-state lithium undertaking within the Yellowknife Pegmatite Province, DeStaffanay spans roughly 1,800 hectares on the shores of the Nice Slave Lake. North Arrow maintains 100% possession over the undertaking, which boasts the identical geologic setting as Li-FT Energy’s extremely profitable Yellowknife Lithium undertaking.
DeStaffanay is presently dwelling to 2 lithium pegmatites often called Moose 1 and Moose 2. Although each deposits are famous in historic data, just one has ever been tapped. Moose 2 was take a look at mined for tantalum, niobium and tin within the Nineteen Forties and Fifties. Neither deposit has been evaluated or focused for lithium.
Undertaking Highlights:
- Strategically Situated: DeStaffanay is located on the shores of Nice Slave Lake, 115 kilometers east of Yellowknife and 18 kilometers northeast of the Nechalacho Uncommon Earth Mine. Its location permits for simple air and barge entry to each Yellowknife and the railhead at Hay River on the lake’s south facet.
- A Promising Lithium District: The Yellowknife Pegmatite Province is widely known for its lithium potential. Different gamers within the space embrace Patriot Battery Metals, Loyal Lithium and Gama Explorations.
- Current Minework: Previous mining efforts have revealed as much as one meter of megacrystic spodumene within the pit partitions. This spodumene was not focused by stated mining efforts, nevertheless.
- Identified Pegmatite Deposits: DeStaffanay accommodates two recognized lithium deposits, with the potential for a lot of extra.
- Moose 2: With 30-meter-wide strikes as much as 450 meters in size, the Moose 2 deposit accommodates feldspar, quartz, spodumene and muscovite, with as much as 40 p.c spodumene regionally. Native amblygonite (Li phosphate) zones (as much as 8.4 p.c lithium oxide; 38.2 p.c phosphorus pentoxide) might present extra lithium upside.
- Moose 1: The Moose 1 deposit has by no means been drilled. Attributable to lack of tantalum or niobium mineralization, it has additionally by no means been mined. Internet hosting strike lengths of 370 meters with a mean size of 4.5 to six meters, the deposit has however confirmed amenable to channel sampling, with the latest outcomes returning 1.5 p.c lithium oxide at 7.5 meters.
- Robust Management: North Arrow’s workforce has previous lithium, tantalum and uncommon earth expertise within the area, together with current group ties that may show helpful when staffing the undertaking.
- Deliberate Subject Work: North Arrow’s present plans for DeStaffanay embrace:
- Prospecting goal areas exterior the 2 pegmatite deposits primarily based on a evaluate of historic lithogeochemistry survey and satellite tv for pc imagery. Presently, North Arrow has identified eight lithogeochemical targets.
- Mapping and channel sampling.
- Delineation drilling to additional outline strike depth and extent of spodumene zones, which will probably be accomplished concurrently with metallurgic work.
- Prospecting and mapping with the aim of discovering new spodumene pegmatites.
Bathurst Inlet Lithium
The Bathurst Inlet Lithium undertaking encompasses both mapped and interpreted pegmatite intrusives all situated inside 9 kilometers of tidewater at Bathurst Inlet. The undertaking’s southernmost mineral declare is inside 12 kilometers of Sabina Gold and Silver’s Port Facility, whereas North Arrow’s Oro Hope Bay Gold Property is roughly 80 kilometers to the northeast.
North Arrow acquired a 100-percent curiosity within the Bathurst Inlet Property in February 2023 and has but to evaluate the undertaking for spodumene and associated lithium mineralization. A program is deliberate for summer season 2023.
Baffin Island
One other recent acquisition, Baffin Island’s staked targets are situated inside 12 kilometers of tidewater. They’re additionally in an space the place granite pegmatites with widths within the tens of meters have been mapped by authorities geologists. North Arrow has not but introduced its plans for the undertaking.
Different Tasks: Gold and Diamond
Oro (Hope Bay)
North Arrow’s Hope Bay is a 100-percent owned, 4,130-hectare gold undertaking situated simply three kilometers north of Agnico Eagle’s famend Doris Mine. North Arrow has confirmed near-surface gold mineralization over a strike of 300 meters, with plans for additional drilling.
Naujaat
0.31-carat fancy colour, rectangular radiant-cut diamond.
The unique tough carat weight was 0.85 carats and the diamond was recovered from the 2021 bulk pattern of the Q1-4 kimberlite on the Naujaat Undertaking.
The Naujaat undertaking homes the most important diamondiferous kimberlite pipe within the Japanese Canadian Arctic together with a uncommon inhabitants of yellow to orange diamonds. To date, North Arrow has recognized a complete of eight kimberlite pipes and related dykes.
Pikoo
Situated in east-central Saskatchewan, the Pikoo claims have been first staked in 2011 primarily based on the outcomes of regional diamond exploration packages. Pikoo’s most vital discovery up to now, Kimberlite PK150, is roughly 10 to fifteen meters broad with a 150-meter strike size traceable to 199 meters.
Loki
Located near Canada’s first two diamond mines, Loki covers 13,898 hectares. North Arrow has recognized a number of unsourced indicator trains within the property’s north and south, together with the historic South Coppermine indicator practice.
Lac De Gras
Lac De Gras is situated throughout the kimberlite area of the identical identify, which additionally hosts the world-class Ekati and Diavik diamond mines. Established as a three way partnership with Arctic Canadian Diamond Firm, the undertaking is taken into account to have vital exploration potential for diamondiferous kimberlites.
Administration Crew
Ken Armstrong – President, CEO and Director
Ken Armstrong brings over 27 years of expertise within the exploration trade. By this time interval, Armstrong has been concerned in diamond, lithium, gold and nickel exploration in North America. From 2008 to 2010 he was concerned in North Arrow’s lithium spodumene exploration in North Carolina and northern Canada.
Armstrong additionally serves as a director of Cornish Metals and a director and present past-president of the Northwest Territories & Nunavut Chamber of Mines. He’s a registered skilled geoscientist within the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and the Province of Ontario. Armstrong directs North Arrow’s diamond exploration packages, reviewing all data of a scientific or technical nature associated to the corporate’s tasks earlier than publication.
Wayne Johnstone – Chief Monetary Officer
Wayne Johnstone graduated from the College of British Columbia in 1977 with a Bachelor of Commerce (finance) and in 1979 earned his chartered accountant designation. He has over 30 years of monetary expertise with private and non-private firms. Through the previous 25 years, Johnstone has targeted on mineral exploration and improvement stage public firms all through North and South America. Extra lately, he was the CFO of New Dimension Sources and of Creston Moly.
Brenda Nowak – Company Secretary
Brenda Nowak has over 30 years of expertise within the securities authorized trade. Along with her function with North Arrow, she can be the company secretary for Cornish Metals (previously Strongbow Exploration) and NGEx Minerals. Up to now, she held this identical place for Filo Mining, Worldwide Northair Mines, New Dimension Sources, Troon Ventures, Stornoway Diamond, Capstone Mining, Creston Moly, Kaminak Gold, Bluestone Sources, Kivalliq Power and West Melville Metals.
Previous to her profession as a company secretary within the junior useful resource sector, Nowak was a paralegal with DuMoulin Black LLP and held positions with Nexus Enterprise Capital Attorneys and Aber Diamond Company.
Eira Thomas – Advisor
Eira Thomas brings greater than 25 years of expertise within the mining trade, together with 16 years with Aber Diamond Company following their discovery of the Diavik diamond mine the place she served in ever-increasing roles from preliminary discovery as a geologist to vice-president exploration and finally, director of the board. She was co-founder of Stornoway Diamond, serving first as CEO after which as government chairman. There, she led the acquisition of the Renard diamond deposit which subsequently turned Quebec’s first diamond mine.
In 2007, Thomas based Lucara with companions Lukas Lundin and Catherine McLeod Seltzer and in February 2018, including to her directorship, turned the president and CEO of the corporate. Previous to this, Thomas served as CEO of Kaminak Gold, which was acquired by Goldcorp in 2016 for $520 Million. She can be a director of Suncor Power.
Allison Rippin-Armstrong – Advisor
Allison Rippin-Armstrong has over 20 years of expertise in company social duty and environmental compliance, having labored for and suggested useful resource firms, Indigenous and Territorial governments and non-government organizations. Rippin-Armstrong has been concerned with tasks all through northern Canada together with Nunavut, the Northwest Territories and Saskatchewan.
Rippin-Armstrong was additionally answerable for the environmental, allowing and group relations packages at Kaminak Gold previous to its acquisition by Goldcorp in July 2016. She is presently self-employed at ARA Environmental Consulting Providers Ltd.
Robin Hopkins – Advisor
Robin Hopkins is an expert geologist with greater than 20 years’ exploration expertise all through Canada, Greenland and southern Africa. Hopkins served as vice-president of exploration for Stornoway Diamond Company from 2006 to 2019, beforehand serving because the chief technical officer of Stornoway’s predecessor firm, Stornoway Ventures, from 2003 till 2006.
Between 2000 and 2004, Hopkins was vice-president, of exploration for Navigator Exploration, and previous to {that a} key member of Aber Sources’ exploration workforce that found the Diavik Diamond Undertaking pipes within the Northwest Territories in 1994. He’s a graduate of the College of Waterloo (H.B.A.Sc. Earth sciences) and a professional individual beneath NI 43-101.
D. Grenville Thomas – Chairman
Grenville Thomas has over 50 years’ expertise within the mining trade, throughout which era he has constructed a formidable observe file of discovery, most notably the world-class Diavik Diamond Mine and the Thor Lake uncommon metals deposit, each within the Northwest Territories.
He was the founder (and held positions of chairman, president and director) of Aber Sources (now Arctic Canadian Diamond Co.) and is presently a director of Cornish Metals and chairman and director of Westhaven Gold Corp.
Thomas’s discoveries have earned him many honors, together with “PDAC Prospector of the 12 months” for 1999 and “Man of the 12 months” by The Northern Miner newspaper (2001). In January of 2009, Thomas was inducted into the Canadian Mining Corridor of Fame situated on the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada.
Christopher Jennings – Director
Dr. Christopher Jennings brings to the board in depth expertise in diamond, gold and base steel exploration and improvement all through the world. Jennings was the founding father of SouthernEra Diamonds Inc., served as a marketing consultant to Aber Sources and has held positions with quite a few firms together with Worldwide Corona, BP Minerals (Canada) and Falconbridge.
Blair Murdoch – Director
Blair Murdoch has 30 years’ expertise in senior administration in each non-public and public firms, with experience encompassing gross sales, advertising and marketing and finance. He’s the chairman of Choice-NFA, an organization traded on the TSX Enterprise Change and he holds a B.Sc. (arithmetic) from the College of British Columbia
Torrie Chartier – Director
Torrie Chartier has over 20 years of expertise as a diamond exploration geologist. Within the 1980-90s, Chartier labored as an impartial marketing consultant and diamond geologist in exploration tasks for numerous junior firms and was immediately concerned within the discovery of kimberlites in Michigan, NWT, Nunavut, and Greenland. She presently serves as CFO and a director of Uravan Minerals, a Calgary-based junior uranium explorer.
In March 2022, Elbow River Helicopters, the corporate she fashioned together with her companion, Bruce Holloway, was offered to Blackcomb Helicopters. She has remained on as regional supervisor of enterprise improvement.
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