- Significant mineralization located
- Near-term production potential
- This advantage puts Quantum Minerals in an excellent position to compete with industry leaders and push forward Canadian efforts to reduce reliance on China and Chile as top global suppliers
Vancouver-based lithium exploration and development company QMC Quantum Minerals Corp. (OTC: QMCQF) (TSX.V: QMC) (FSE: 3LQ) has identified additional spodumene-bearing pegmatite dikes at its 100 percent-owned Irgon Lithium Mine Project within the Cat Lake-Winnipeg River rare element pegmatite field (http://nnw.fm/lLCB1).
On October 17, Quantum Minerals announced a significant visual spodumene mineralization in the Mapetre Pegmatite Dike had been confirmed. The Mapetre Dike, located south of the Irgon Dike, hosts two historic pits. In them, Quantum Minerals experts have identified large spodumene crystals, a discovery that will lead to extensive sampling after overburden is cleared from the entire strike length of the Mapetre Dike.
Representative samples have already been collected from the Mapetre pits, which have the same mineralogical characteristics as the 4.16 percent high grade samples obtained at QMC’s nearby Central Dike (QMC NR October 10, 2018). Quantum Minerals expects the Mapetre samples to produce similar elevated lithium results.
The Quantum Minerals assets are considered of particularly high importance given Canada’s emergence as a potentially significant lithium producer. Currently, China and Chile rank as the world’s top lithium producers. China is in control of 30 percent of the production market, and industrial acquisitions are expected to give the country an even larger share (http://nnw.fm/6CSrz).
Manitoba, the Canadian Province in which Quantum Minerals is focusing its activities, is rich with potential for lithium exploration and is already labelled as one of the world’s best mining districts. Many deposits, including those on the Quantum Minerals Irgon Property, were discovered decades ago but were never fully explored. At the time, lithium was far from a profitable resource, and interest in mining the lithium resources was low. Through the renewed efforts in Manitoba, Quantum Minerals is showing how companies outside of China and Chile can compete with some of the big players.
Quantum Minerals is benefitting from the past surveys that map out the available resource, as well as having the infrastructure for power access nearby that can be quickly refurbished. Roads also enable easy logistical access to the area.
The company intends to extract the spodumene mineralization from the dike, which can easily and quickly be reduced to either lithium hydroxide or lithium carbonate. This process contrasts with the much slower process used in the Chinese and Chilean mining efforts. With this process, lithium is extracted from brines as the water in the solution slowly evaporates. In Manitoba, Quantum Minerals can simply mine and process the rock, which leads to a faster turnaround time to set up extraction and produce a saleable product.
The hard rock method and the existing infrastructure put Quantum Minerals in an enviable position from which it can quickly begin extracting large quantities of high-quality lithium ore, with the potential to help the company secure a leading position on the lithium production market.
Over the past 20 years, lithium has become one of the most demanded resources, as Li-ion batteries are now used to power a wide range of devices, including electric vehicles. The global lithium production is at a level of 600,000 tons per year. The demand is expected to increase by anywhere between 600,000 and 800,000 tons in the coming decade (http://nnw.fm/9Dp9A). Lithium prices have increased by approximately 30 percent in recent years, and experts predict a further hike in the future.
For more information, visit the company’s website at www.QMCMinerals.com
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