Canadian lithium explorer Patriot Battery Metals (TSXV: PMET; ASX: PMT) has refuted a media report suggesting that it had appointed Macquarie Capital to seek out potential buyers for the company.
The Australian newspaper reported on Sunday that Patriot had tapped the investment bank with the intention of putting itself up for sale.
The Vancouver-based junior said it had not started any process that could result in the sale of the company or any of its assets. It did, however, note that it has appointed a “range of advisers” and “key personnel” to support the continued development of its flagship Corvette lithium spodumene asset in Quebec.
Patriot, which had to suspend operations in early June due to wildfires in the area, is working on the resource estimate for the project, scheduled to be published in late July.
While the Quebec wildfires have affected some of the related work, Patriot said it did not expect them to have a significant impact on the resource release.
Patriot plans to convert a winter snow road to an all-weather exploration road, allowing drilling through October, November and December, when fog in the region negatively impacts transportation by helicopters.
The company is also advancing its new exploration camp to further enable a more efficient drilling program by cutting travel time and reducing dependency on helicopters.
In January, Macquarie Capital said drilling results showed Corvette held similar high-grade lithium resources to those of the world-leading Greenbushes mine in Western Australia, jointly owned by IGO Ltd. (ASX: IGO), Albemarle (NYSE: ALB) and Chinese investors.
The 156.9 metres grading 2.12% lithium oxide (Li2O) that Patriot reported in January is currently sitting in seventh place on Opaxe’s list of this year top drilling results.
Canaccord Genuity analysts have forecast a resource of 148.8 million tonnes at 1.14% Li2O. “If successful in defining a resource of this scale, Patriot would rank as the largest hard rock lithium project in North America, and as a top 10 global deposit,” metals and mining expert, Katie Lachapelle, said earlier this month.
Rumours of Australian players eyeing Patriot as a potential acquisition target have been in Australian media on and off this year. In February, it was said that Mineral Resources (ASX: MIN), Pilbara Minerals (ASX: PLS) and Wesfarmers (ASX: WES) were all interested in buying the Canadian miner or, at least, a stake in it.
Australian lithium miners, such as Pilbara Minerals, Orocobre (TSX: ORL; ASX: ORE) and Galaxy Resources (ASX: GXY), are all looking to expand their global footprint and diversify their supply sources amid rising demand for battery metals. Analysts say they see Patriot as an attractive opportunity to gain access to the North American market and secure long-term supply contracts with leading battery manufacturers.
Quebec has become a hard rock lithium hotspot as companies vie to supply the surging electric vehicle market. The federal government approved the James Bay open-pit project by Galaxy Resources, a part of Allkem (TSX: AKE; ASX: AKE), in January.
Azimut Exploration (TSXV: AZM) has its own James Bay project and Sayona Mining (ASX: SYA) expects the first spodumene shipment from its North American Lithium (NAL) operation to take place in July.
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