Lithium Universe has made a roaring start to listing on the ASX, with its share price touching 6.3 cents during intraday trading after it raised its maximum subscription of $4.5 million and opened at just 2c.
Nearly two-thirds of the money the company raised in its IPO changed hands throughout the day with a volume of nearly 58 million shares being moved. Having its stock more than triple on its first day completes a remarkable transformation for a company that was trading as Mogul Games just five months ago.
Management says its immediate focus will now be to fast-track the exploration and associated development of its Apollo lithium project in Canada’s renowned James Bay area.
The operation in the province of Quebec covers about 240 square kilometres and includes 466 claims. The site is considered a greenfield project with limited historical exploration. Quebec’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Forests has identified a total of 17 outcrops on the property as dominantly being pegmatite-hosted.
Management says an accelerated exploration program will start with the systematic mapping, geochemical soil sampling and geophysical surveys of all 17 pegmatite outcrops and the north-east/south-west-trending topographic highs previously identified by the Québec government. Concurrently, an airborne geophysical and remote survey will be conducted to concentrate field works and provide high-priority drill targets for the maiden campaign.
Lithium Universe chief executive officer Alex Hanly said: “We are immensely pleased with the positive reaction from the market to our key project acquisitions, team composition and the Company’s long-term strategy. Our success today is a stepping stone towards our greater ambitions. We remain focused and confident on delivering our broader long-term goals in developing a project within the James Bay region.”
The claim at Apollo was staked early last year by a private owner and is on the same trend as and adjacent to ground owned by Patriot Battery Metals and Winsome Resources – both of which have hit thick, shallow and high-grade coarse spodumene mineralisation during drilling.
Patriot’s Corvette deposit holds an inferred resource of 109.2 million tonnes at 1.42 per cent lithium oxide and 160 parts per million tantalum oxide. Drilling at the site has returned some impressive hits including 156m at 2.12 per cent lithium oxide.
Winsome has its Adina deposit about 20km east of Apollo, where it has returned best drill results of 107m grading 1.34 per cent lithium oxide from just 2.3m.
Lithium Universe’s non-executive chairman Iggy Tan was one of the first Australian mining executives to identify the significant opportunity within the emerging lithium-ion battery sector when he spearheaded Galaxy Resources. His previous experience working within the lithium industry dates back to the early 1990s when he briefly managed the Greenbushes lithium mine and commissioned the first lithium carbonate plant for Gwalia Consolidated.
And the market obviously shares his enthusiasm about the potential in James Bay, with the company’s share price jumping 215 per cent on only its first day of trading.
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By Michael Philipps
