The company’s shares surged to a record high of A60c in late 2022 after it acquired the Pontax lithium project in Canada.

That acquisition coincided with record lithium prices and despite progress at Pontax, including the delineation of a maiden resource, the lithium price – and Cygnus’ share price – have been on a downward trajectory ever since.

In mid-October, Cygnus announced a merger with Doré, a copper-focused junior listed on the TSX-V.

Doré shareholders received 1.82 Cygnus shares for every share held, giving Doré shareholders around 45% of the enlarged entity.

The merger closed on January 2.

The enlarged company is led by Perth-based David Southam as executive chairman and former Doré CEO Ernest Mast as president and managing director.

The new-look Cygnus has A$14 million in cash and is now listed in Toronto, as well as the ASX.

Mast and fellow Canada-based directors Kevin Tomlinson and Mario Stifano this week celebrated the company’s dual listing in Toronto by opening the TSX.

Tomlinson, while Canadian, is well-known in Australia as the chairman of Bellevue Gold and FireFly Metals. Another Cygnus director, Ray Shorrocks, was the founding chairman of Bellevue and is the current chairman of FireFly.

The stock is up 50% since the merger was announced.

Copper focus

Doré’s flagship project is the Chibougamau copper-gold project in Quebec.

Chibougamau has a resource of 10.8 million tonnes at 3.5% copper equivalent, which Cygnus says makes it one of the highest-grade copper projects listed on the ASX.

Contained metal is 306,000 tonnes of copper and 314,000 ounces of gold.

Chibougamau is a former producer, operating for most of the 20th century up until 2008, with 16 mines across the district delivering around 945,000t of copper and 3.5 million ounces of gold.

The project includes a 900,000t per annum processing plant, which has an estimated replacement value of C$150 million.

It is the only milling infrastructure within a 250km radius.

Doré released a preliminary economic assessment for Chibougamau in 2022, which outlined the economic viability of a 10.5-year hub-and-spoke operation to produce 492 million pounds of copper and 142,000oz of gold at all-in sustaining costs of US$2.24 per pound of copper.

At metal prices of US$4.20/lb of copper and US$1854 an ounce of gold, the project returned a post-tax net present value of C$303 million and internal rate of return of 29.4%.

Metal prices are currently around US$4.40/lb and US$2700/oz of gold.

Cygnus sees huge potential to increase the project’s resource with all resources remaining open.

Like its sister companies FireFly and Andean Silver, Cygnus plans to capitalise on the use of geophysics and down-hole electromagnetics, which have never been used at the project.

Last week, Cygnus staked further ground next to Chibougamau to increase its total landholding to 282 square kilometres.

The company completed an exploration program at Chibougamau in the final quarter of 2024 with results due any day now.

Two diamond drill rigs arrived on site last week to kick off the 2025 program.

Cygnus is targeting both resource growth and priority brownfield exploration targets.

Lithium retained

The enlarged Cygnus still holds the Pontax project, which has a resource of 10.1Mt at 1.04% lithium oxide, as well as the Auclair and Sakami projects, spanning 827 square kilometres.

The James Bay lithium hosts over 450Mt of lithium resources, making it the second most endowed hard rock lithium terrane in the world after Western Australia.

The spotlight has been on the region in recent months following Rio Tinto’s US$6.7 billion takeover of Arcadium Lithium, which is due to close shortly, as well as news from Patriot Battery Metals just before Christmas.

Patriot, owner of the Shaakichiuwaanaan lithium project, announced a C$69 million investment at a premium by carmaker Volkswagen, a binding offtake agreement with Volkswagen’s 100%-owned battery manufacturing subsidiary PowerCo as well as a strategic partnership.

Cygnus’ Pontax project is just 30km south of Arcadium’s 110.2Mt Galaxy project, which Rio has said it was keen to advance within the next four years.

Mineralisation at Pontax remains open in all directions. The resource has been defined over 1.2km of strike, while highly fractionated LCT pegmatites have been confirmed over 25km and spodumene mineralisation confirmed over 9km.

Sakami, just 44km west of Shaakichiuwaanaan, and Auclair are earlier stage but Cygnus has defined targets for follow-up drilling.

Cygnus is awaiting drilling results from Auclair and sampling results from Sakami.