A New Age for Palladium and Lithium
Omri Wallach Omri Wallach, Stockhouse
2 Comments| December 5, 2019
The continued upwards momentum for the metal is even causing noted gold-only investors to inject capital into the Palladium market. Palladium, one of the six platinum group metals (PGMs), is a key component of the automotive industry, as most of its use comes in the form of catalytic converters that reduce harmful automobile exhaust.
As Palladium demand has gone up, key suppliers such as Russia and South Africa have been unable to keep up, leading to industry participants looking elsewhere for lucrative deposits. The only two primary PGM producers in North America, Stillwater Mining and North American Palladium, have been acquired by South African companies over the past 3 years. When considering the ageing infrastructure, increasing wage costs and general political instability in Russia and South Africa, palladium deposits in North America look even more attractive.
One of the companies invested in the space is New Age Metals Inc. (TSX-V:NAM, OTC:NMTLF, Forum), with two PGM deposits at different stages of the exploration and development cycle. The Company’s River Valley PGM Project is within 100km of Sudbury, Ontario and had a Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) completed over the summer, and last month, its Genesis PGM Project in Alaska was found to have double the size of prospective mineralization.
Stockhouse readers may be familiar with New Age Metals from an October feature that highlighted the Company’s unique position in PGMs and another “opposing” metal, lithium. While the automobile industry requires palladium for gasoline-powered vehicles, the rising demand for electric vehicles relies heavily on lithium.
In Manitoba, New Age Metals has 100% ownership of seven lithium and rare element projects, and last month the Company announced it received a drill permit from the provincial government for its sizeable Lithium Two deposit which has a historical non-NI 43-101 compliant resource of 544,460 tonnes grading 1.4% Li2O.
Stockhouse Editorial recently had the opportunity to catch up with Harry Barr, the Chairman and CEO of New Age Metals. We discussed the strong market moves for palladium, the Company’s recent impressive results, and what’s on the docket for New Age Metals in 2020.