Overview
Atlantic Lithium Restricted (AIM: ALL, ASX: A11,GSE: ALLGH, OTCQX:ALLIF) is an African-focused lithium exploration and improvement firm advancing its flagship Ewoyaa Lithium challenge by way of to manufacturing as Ghana’s first lithium mine. Regardless of its lengthy mining historical past, beneficial regulatory local weather and steady political backdrop, Ghana stays largely neglected as an funding jurisdiction for battery metals. Located on the West African coast, the nation boasts a robust strategic location, between Europe, the Americas and Asia, to serve the worldwide battery metals market. Ghana can be dwelling to an abundance of mineral wealth, with c. 180,000 tonnes of estimated lithium sources.
Atlantic Lithium intends to provide spodumene focus able to conversion to lithium hydroxide and carbonate to be used in electrical car batteries, serving to drive the transition to decarbonisation.
A definitive feasibility research (DFS) launched in June 2023 exhibits Ewoyaa has demonstrable financial viability, low capital depth and wonderful profitability. After drilling on the new Canine-Leg goal, with high-grade assay outcomes, the JORC mineral useful resource estimate at Ewoyaa now stands at 36.8 million tons (Mt) at 1.24 p.c lithium oxide, 81 of which is now within the greater confidence measured and indicated classes (3.7 Mt at 1.37 p.c within the measured class, 26.1 Mt at 1.24 p.c within the indicated class, and seven Mt @ 1.15 p.c within the Inferred class).
Via easy open-pit mining, three-stage crushing and traditional Dense Media Separation (DMS) processing, the DFS (additionally contemplating the fiscal phrases agreed upon the grant of the Mining Lease for the challenge in October 2023) outlines the manufacturing of three.6 Mt of spodumene focus over a 12-year mine life, delivering US$6.6 billion life-of-mine revenues, a post-tax NPV8 of US$1.3 billion and an inside charge of return of 94 p.c.
The challenge is predicted to ship nameplate manufacturing from its plant as early as 2026.
As of July 2024, Atlantic Lithium has reached some vital milestones within the allowing course of for the Ewoyaa challenge, together with: the profitable completion of the second and remaining Environmental Safety Company (EPA) public listening to; submission of draft atmosphere impression assertion to the EPA; introduction and graduation of buying and selling on the Major Market of the Ghana Inventory Change, as agreed underneath the phrases of the grant of the Ewoyaa Mining Lease.
The Mining Lease for the Ewoyaa challenge has now been submitted to parliament to endure a ratification course of.
Mission Funding
The event of the challenge is co-funded underneath an settlement with NASDAQ and ASX-listed Piedmont Lithium (ASX:PLL), with Piedmont anticipated to fund c. 70 p.c of the US$185 million complete improvement expenditure indicated by the DFS.
In accordance with the settlement, Piedmont has accomplished funding of US$25 million in the direction of research and exploration, and can sole fund an preliminary US$70 million, plus 50 p.c of prices thereafter (shared 50:50 between Atlantic Lithium and Piedmont), in the direction of the full improvement expenditure for the challenge, as indicated by the DFS.
In return, Piedmont will obtain 50 p.c of the spodumene focus produced at Ewoyaa, offering a path to shoppers by way of a number of main battery producers, together with Tesla.
The Minerals Earnings Funding Fund (MIIF), Ghana’s minerals sovereign wealth fund, has additionally agreed to take a position a complete of US$32.9 million within the firm and on the project-level to expedite the event of the challenge.
Representing the primary a part of the Strategic Funding, MIIF accomplished a Subscription for US$5 million Atlantic Lithium shares in January 2024, to change into a serious strategic shareholder within the firm.
Representing the second a part of the Strategic Funding, MIIF has agreed to take a position, topic to the corporate reaching a binding settlement with MIIF, US$27.9 million within the firm’s Ghanaian subsidiaries to accumulate a 6 p.c contributing curiosity within the challenge. The US$27.9 million project-level funding and the contributing curiosity are anticipated to take the type of funding for improvement, exploration and research expenditure to assist the development of the challenge.
As well as, Atlantic Lithium is within the remaining phases of a aggressive offtake partnering course of to safe funding for a portion of the remaining 50 p.c accessible feedstock from Ewoyaa.
The target of the method is to draw funding provides to sufficiently cowl the Firm’s allocation of improvement expenditure for the Mission, to expedite and de-risk the event of the Mission, realise engaging phrases for any offtake contracted and safe a well-credentialled companion that may assist the corporate’s and Ghana’s goals of supplying lithium into the worldwide electrical car market.
The corporate has indicated its most well-liked phrases of as much as 500,000 tons of spodumene focus to be contracted over a 3- to 5-year interval, utilizing a beneficial market-based pricing mechanism, for a consideration of as much as US$100 million within the type of a pre-payment association, which is predicted to sufficiently cowl the corporate’s allocation of improvement expenditure.
Ghana
Ghana is a well-established mining area with entry to dependable, present infrastructure and a big mining workforce. There are at the moment 16 working mines within the nation.
Already the biggest taxpayer and employer in Ghana’s Central Area, Atlantic Lithium is predicted to offer direct employment to over 800 personnel at Ewoyaa and, by way of its group improvement fund, whereby 1 p.c of earnings will likely be allotted to native initiatives, will ship long-lasting advantages to the area and Ghana.
Via its confirmed lithium discovery, exploration and analysis methodologies, Atlantic Lithium has the potential to capitalise on its in depth exploration portfolio and ship upon its goals of changing into a number one producer of lithium in West Africa.
Atlantic Lithium’s flagship Ewoyaa Lithium Mission is located inside 110 kilometres of Takoradi Port and 100 kilometres of Accra, with entry to wonderful infrastructure and a talented native workforce.
Atlantic Lithium was granted a Mining Lease in respect of the Mission in October 2023. The Firm is at the moment advancing the Mission by way of the allowing course of in the direction of manufacturing.
Highlights:
- Promising DFS Outcomes: Atlantic Lithium’s DFS reaffirmed Ewoyaa as an industry-leading asset with low capital depth and wonderful profitability. Highlights embody:
- Estimated 12-year lifetime of mine, producing 3.6 Mt spodumene focus.
- 365 ktpa regular state manufacturing
- Common LOM EBITDA of US$316 million every year
- NPV of US$1.3 billion
- Life-of-mine revenues of US$6.6 billion
- Modest $185 million improvement expenditure
- Strong US$675/t All in sustaining value and US$377 C1 money value.
- Beneficial Location: The challenge’s starter pits are positioned inside one kilometre of its processing plant. Moreover, Ewoyaa has entry to dependable present infrastructure, positioned inside 800 metres from the N1 freeway and adjoining to grid energy.
- Promising Reserves: Ewoyaa’s present mineral useful resource estimate (as of July 2024) at is 36.8 Mt at 1.24 p.c lithium oxide, of which 81 p.c is now within the greater confidence measured and indicated classes (3.7 Mt at 1.37 p.c lithium oxide within the measured class, and 26.1 Mt at 1.24 p.c lithium oxide within the indicated class, and seven Mt @ 1.15 p.c lithium within the inferred class).
- Potential for Additional Exploration: There stays important exploration potential, with only one p.c of Atlantic Lithium’s complete tenure having been drilled so far.
- Sturdy Partnerships: Atlantic Lithium has a 50-percent offtake deal with Piedmont Lithium, which itself has offtake agreements with each Tesla and LG Chem, and has an agreed with Ghana’s Minerals Earnings Funding Fund to expedite the event of the Mission.
- Optimistic Presence: Atlantic Lithium will generate important financial advantages for the area. As soon as operational, the challenge is predicted to make use of over 800 personnel and ship roughly US$4.9 billion in worth to Ghana, together with by way of taxes, royalties, employment and native procurement.
Atlantic Lithium at the moment has two purposes pending for an space of roughly 774 sq. kilometres within the West African nation of Côte d’Ivoire. The underexplored but extremely potential area is understood to be underlain by prolific birimian greenstone belts, characterised by fractionated granitic intrusive centres with lithium and colombite-tantalum occurrences and outcropping pegmatites. The world can be extremely well-served, with in depth highway infrastructure, well-established mobile community and high-voltage transmission line inside 100 kilometres of the nation’s financial capital, Abidjan.
Administration Group
Neil Herbert – Government Chairman
Neil Herbert is a fellow of the Affiliation of Chartered Licensed Accountants and has over 30 years of expertise in finance. He has been concerned in rising mining and oil and fuel firms, each as an government and as an investor, for over 25 years.
Till Might 2013, he was co-chairman and managing director of AIM-quoted Polo Assets, a pure sources funding firm. Previous to this, Herbert was a director of useful resource funding firm Galahad Gold, after which he grew to become finance director of its most profitable funding, the start-up uranium firm UraMin, from 2005 to 2007. Throughout this era, he labored to drift the corporate on AIM and the Toronto Inventory Change in 2006, increase US$400 million in fairness financing and negotiate the sale of the group for US$2.5 billion.
Herbert has held board positions at plenty of useful resource firms the place he has been concerned in managing quite a few acquisitions, disposals, inventory market listings and fundraisings. He holds a joint honours diploma in economics and financial historical past from the College of Leicester.
Keith Muller – Chief Government Officer
Keith Muller is a mining engineer with over 20 years of operational and management expertise throughout home and worldwide mining, together with within the lithium sector. He has a robust operational background in laborious rock lithium mining and processing, notably in DMS spodumene processing.
Earlier than becoming a member of Atlantic Lithium, he held roles as each a enterprise chief and common supervisor at Allkem, the place he labored on the Mt Cattlin lithium mine in Western Australia and, previous to that, Muller served as operations supervisor and senior mining engineer at Simec.
Muller holds a Grasp of Mining Engineering from the College of New South Wales and a Bachelor of Engineering from the College of Pretoria. He’s additionally a member of the Australian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, the Board of Skilled Engineers of Queensland, and the Engineering Council of South Africa.
Amanda Harsas – Finance Director and Firm Secretary
Amanda Harsas is a senior finance government with a demonstrable observe document and over 25 years’ expertise in strategic finance, enterprise transformation, industrial finance, buyer and provider negotiations and capital administration. Previous to becoming a member of Atlantic Lithium, she labored in a number of sectors, together with healthcare, insurance coverage, retail {and professional} companies, throughout Asia, Europe and the U.S. Harsas holds a Bachelor of Enterprise from the College of Know-how, Sydney and is a member of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand and the Australian Institute of Firm Administrators.
Kieran Daly – Non-executive Director
Kieran Daly is the chief of Development and Strategic Improvement at Assore. He holds a BSc Mining Engineering from Camborne Faculty of Mines (1991) and an MBA from Wits Enterprise Faculty (2001) and labored in funding banking/fairness analysis for greater than 10 years at UBS, Macquarie and Investec, previous to becoming a member of Assore in 2018.
Daly spent the primary 15 years of his mining profession at Anglo American’s coal division (Anglo Coal) in plenty of worldwide roles together with operations, gross sales and advertising and marketing, technique and enterprise improvement. Amongst his key roles have been main and growing Anglo Coal’s advertising and marketing efforts in Asia and to metal {industry} prospects globally. He was additionally the World Head of Technique for Anglo Coal instantly previous to leaving Anglo in 2007.
Christelle Van Der Merwe – Non-executive Director
Christelle Van Der Merwe is a mining geologist answerable for the mining-related geology and sources of Assore’s subsidiary firms (comprising the pyrophyllite and chromite mines) and can be involved with the corporate’s iron and manganese mines. She has been the Assore group geologist since 2013 and is concerned with the strategic and useful resource funding selections of the corporate. Van Der Merwe is a member of SACNASP and the GSSA.
Edward Nana Yaw Koranteng – Non-executive Director
Edward Koranteng is a lawyer and an skilled company and funding banker with over 23 years of expertise. He has served because the chief government officer of the Minerals Earnings Funding Fund (MIIF), Ghana’s sovereign minerals wealth fund, since 2021.
Previous to becoming a member of MIIF, Koranteng held the function of Enterprise Head for East, Central and Southern Africa for Ghana Worldwide Financial institution plc (“GHIB”), the place he was answerable for GHIB’s vitality and mining portfolio. He additionally labored with the Chase Financial institution Group (Kenya), now SBM Financial institution of Mauritius, as group head for vitality, oil, fuel and mining. Koranteng at the moment sits on the boards of Asante Gold Company, MIIF and Glico Common Insurance coverage Ltd.
Koranteng holds a BA (Hons) from the College of Ghana, a Grasp of Legal guidelines in Worldwide Banking and Finance from the College of Leeds within the UK, a Postgraduate Diploma from BPP Regulation Faculty within the UK and the Ghana Faculty of Regulation. He has practiced as a barrister in each the UK and Ghana and holds numerous government and postgraduate certifications, together with in oil, fuel and mining from the Blavatnik Faculty of Authorities, College of Oxford within the UK.
Jonathan Henry – Unbiased Non-executive Director
Jonathan Henry is an skilled Non-Government Director, having held numerous management and board roles for practically twenty years. Henry has important experience working throughout capital markets, enterprise improvement, challenge financing, key stakeholder engagement, and the reporting and implementation of ESG-focused initiatives. Henry has a wealth of expertise initiatives in the direction of manufacturing and commercialisation to ship shareholder worth.
Henry additionally serves as non-executive chair of Toronto Enterprise Change-listed (TSX-V) Giyani Metals Company, a battery improvement firm advancing its portfolio of manganese oxide initiatives in Botswana, having beforehand held the function of government chair. His earlier roles embody as government chair and non-executive director at Ormonde Mining plc, non-executive director at Ashanti Gold Company, president, director and chief government officer at Gabriel Assets Restricted and numerous roles, together with chief government officer and managing director, at Avocet Mining PLC. He holds a BA (Hons) in Pure Sciences from Trinity School, Dublin.
Michael Bourguignon – Head of Capital Tasks
Michael Bourguignon is a distinguished challenge administration skilled with a wealthy historical past of main important initiatives within the mining and vitality sectors. Most just lately, he served because the COO at Evolution Power Minerals in Tanzania, the place he managed the optimisation and replace of the Definitive Feasibility Research, managed the Entrance-Finish Engineering Design package deal, and oversaw the completion of the Relocation Motion Plan and different community-related works.
Previous to this, Bourguignon labored with Rio Tinto in Australia as a consulting building supervisor, in addition to Glencore’s Mopani Copper Mines in Zambia, the place he was the challenge director for the Mopani Synclinorium Concentrator, and Syrah’s Balama Graphite Mine in Mozambique, the place he was challenge director. He has additionally beforehand labored in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire with Perseus Mining.
Bourguignon holds an MBA from Murdoch College and is a member of the Australian Institute of Mission Administration.
Andrew Henry – Common Supervisor, Business and Finance
Andrew Henry is an achieved Common Supervisor with over a decade’s expertise within the operational mining sector, specialising in technique, planning and evaluation, contracts, large-scale challenge improvement and website operations.
Earlier than becoming a member of Atlantic Lithium, Henry held the function of economic supervisor at world lithium chemical compounds firm Allkem and, previous to that, he spent over 4 years with main gold mining firm Newcrest Mining.
Henry holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the College of South Australia and is a member of CPA Australia.
Ahmed-Salim Adam – Common Supervisor, Operations
Ahmed-Salim Adam is an skilled mining common supervisor with over 15 years of expertise main numerous large-scale initiatives in Ghana throughout all phases of mine improvement, manufacturing, and closure, with a give attention to security and sustainability.
Adam has beforehand held plenty of management roles, together with as senior guide of Metallurgy at GEOMAN Seek the advice of Ltd, as a director for FGR Bogoso Prestea Ltd’s Refractory Mission and as common supervisor at Golden Star Assets Ltd.
He holds a MPhil Minerals Engineering and a Bachelor of Science (Hons) in Mineral Engineering, each from the College of Mines and Know-how, Ghana. He’s additionally a member of The Institute of Supplies, Minerals and Mining (IOM3) in the UK and the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy (AusIMM) in Australia.
Simone Horsfall – Common Supervisor, Folks
Simone Horsfall joins Atlantic Lithium as Common Supervisor, Folks with over 25 years of expertise working throughout a broad vary of industries, with a give attention to the mining sector. Beforehand, Horsfall spent over a decade at AngloGold Ashanti Australia as human sources supervisor and, extra just lately, at 29Metals as group supervisor of human sources.
Horsfall holds a diploma in Human Useful resource Administration, a college certificates in Psychology from Edith Cowan College, Sydney, and a post-graduate diploma in Human Assets from Deakin College.
Belinda Gethin – Common Supervisor, Company Finance and Firm Secretary
Belinda assumed the function of common supervisor, company – finance and firm secretary in January 2024, having initially joined the corporate as monetary reporting supervisor in June 2023. To her function at Atlantic Lithium, Gethin brings a wealth of expertise in all facets of statutory, monetary and company reporting, together with the preparation of economic statements and accounting for advanced transactions. Earlier than becoming a member of Atlantic Lithium, Gethin labored because the chief monetary officer for Lumus Imaging and, previous to that, because the group reporting supervisor at Healius. Gethin is a chartered accountant and holds a Bachelor of Commerce from UNSW in Sydney, Australia.
Iwan Williams – Common Supervisor, Exploration
Iwan Williams is an exploration geologist with over 20 years’ expertise throughout a broad vary of commodities, principally iron ore, manganese, gold, copper (porphyry and sed. hosted), PGE’s, nickel and different base metals, in addition to chromitite, phosphates, coal and diamond.
Williams has in depth southern and west African expertise and has labored in Central and South America. His expertise contains all facets of exploration administration, challenge era, alternative evaluations, due diligence and mine geology. He has in depth research expertise having participated within the supply of a number of challenge research together with useful resource, mine design standards, baseline environmental and social research and metallurgical test-work programmes. He’s very accustomed to working in Africa having spent 23 years of his 28-year geological profession in Africa. Williams is a graduate of the College of Liverpool.
Abdul Razak – Exploration Supervisor, Ghana
Abdul Razak has in depth exploration, useful resource analysis and challenge administration expertise all through West Africa with a robust give attention to data-rich environments. He has in depth gold expertise having labored all through Ghana with AngloGold Ashanti, Goldfields Ghana, Perseus and Golden Star, in addition to worldwide exploration and useful resource analysis expertise in Burkina Faso, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Republic of Congo, Nigeria and Guinea.
Razak is an integral member of the workforce, managing all website actions together with drilling, laboratory, native groups, geotech and hydro, group consultations and stakeholder engagements and was instrumental in institution of the present improvement workforce and defining Ghana’s maiden lithium useful resource estimate.
