Gerard O’Donovan, who learned his trade working at Pilbara Minerals as the project manager on the concentrator at the Pilgangoora project, is bullish on Battery Age Mineral’s prospects in the country as it re-launches on the ASX on Monday.
Previously called Pathfinder Resources, the Perth-headquartered company has been reborn as a lithium as explorer through its flagship Falcon Lake project, located in the Thunder Bay mining region in north-western Ontario, Canada.
Mr O’Donovan, who originally hails from Ireland, joins a number of West Australian mining bosses looking to North America for lithium — including his former mentor and ex-Pilbara Minerals boss Ken Brinsden, now chair of Canadian lithium explorer Patriot Battery Metals.
Mineral Resources’ Chris Ellison is also rumoured to be eyeing Canada after The West Australian reported MinRes had been buying shares in Patriot, fuelling talks of a potential spin-off of MinRes’ lithium business. The company declined to comment.
“It is a who’s who of who’s done it in West Australia that’s moving over there,” said Mr O’Donovan, who also named lithium bosses Alex Cheeseman from Critical Resources, Chris Evans from Winsome Resources and Cygnus Gold, lead by ex-Mincor Resources chief David Southam.
“They’re going for a reason. The Biden Government is also obviously heavily incentivising works in free trade agreement countries and Canada is probably the optimum place to do that.”
Critical Resources is also focused on Ontario for its flagship lithium project while Patriot, Winsome and Cygnus are exploring Quebec’s James Bay region.
Mr O’Donovan said Falcon Lake’s proximity to the car manufacturing hubs of Windsor and Detroit, as well as auto giants like Stellantis, made it ideally placed within the booming North American battery market.
He noted last week’s announcement that General Motors would invest $US650 million ($939m) in Lithium Americas to help it develop Nevada’s Thacker Pass mine, which holds enough lithium to build 1 million electric vehicles annually.
“I like the backing that’s coming. I think Canada realises the time is now with respect to their critical minerals strategy . . . and they’re also welcoming the expertise of what the West Australians and Australians can bring. They understand we’ve done it before,” he said.
“I just feel like Canada is the new Pilbara when it comes to lithium. I feel like it’s all happening.”
Battery Age Minerals last month raised $6.5 million in a public offer that saw shares priced at 40¢ a piece. The bulk of the funds will go towards developing Falcon Lake, with a drilling program expected to start later this quarter.
The company also plans to progress exploration activities at its two other assets: the Tidili copper-gold project in Morocco and the Bleiberg zinc-lead-germanium project in Austria.
Mr O’Donovan said he struggled to see how lithium would plunge to $US800 a tonne, as predicted in a recent report by Goldman Sachs which tipped spodumene prices would fall to that level by 2024.
“I think there is a place for a lot of explorers in this market to move into production. I’m very much an advocate of everyone needs to succeed to supply that demand,” he said.
Mr O’Donovan first worked with Mr Brinsden at Atlas Iron as a senior project engineer during the iron ore boom before joining Pilbara Minerals in August 2016, where he oversaw the ramping up construction of Pilgangoora before the lithium market cooled.
He then joined Rio Tinto to work on the miner’s Winu copper-gold discovery until Mr Brinsden lured him back to Pilbara at the start of 2021 to lead the restart of the Ngangaju plant at Pilgangoora, acquired from collapsed lithium miner Altura.
Battery Age Minerals is Mr O’Donovan’s first chief executive role.
Asked about the best piece of advice he received from Mr Brinsden, he said: “You have to listen to everyone, because never know what nugget of information or wisdom or advice will come out of a 20 minute conversation or a half hour conversation.”
