Energy

TSXV:GEMC    $4.73M

John Ballem

john.ballem@themarketherald.ca

22 September 2021

Global Energy Metals (GEMC) is partnering with American Battery Technology Company to manufacture nickel and cobalt battery metals.

Under the terms of the agreement, the companies will evaluate strategic cooperative opportunities that could enable a stable supply of battery minerals critical for the electrification of vehicles and energy storage to the North American market.

Highlights

• - American Battery Technology Company (ABTC) will expand its primary battery metal extraction development to include nickel and cobalt resources in addition to lithium

  - GEMC will supply raw material from its Lovelock and Treasure Box projects in Nevada to undergo ABTC’s in-house newly-developed process for producing battery cathode grade nickel and cobalt metal sulphates, and

  - ABTC and GEMC will evaluate strategic cooperative opportunities that could enable securing a stable supply of battery minerals.

Mitchell Smith, President & CEO of Global Energy Metals commented on the partnership with ABTC.

“We are truly excited to be collaborating with American Battery Technology Company, given the shared vision both companies have in securing and building a North American supply of critical and strategic battery minerals while using technology to support the future of electrified transportation.

The combination of ABTC’s leading-edge extraction technology development processes with Global Energy’s portfolio of nickel and cobalt projects creates mutually beneficial opportunities that could bolster and secure a much-needed supply of minerals deemed “critical” by the Canadian and US governments.”

ABTC’s CEO and CTO Ryan Melsert replied,

“The partnership between American Battery Technology Company and Global Energy Metals Corporation represents a complementary and actionable effort towards establishing a North American supply of critical and strategic materials that will fuel the global transition towards an electrified and domestic closed-loop circular economy,” said  “While our lithium-ion battery recycling facilities will be first to market and allow us to make an immediate impact on addressing these global challenges, by allocating the bench scale resources now to also be developing processes for the production of battery grade nickel and cobalt from primary materials we will be in the position to subsequently commercialize this additional set of technologies.”

For the last two years, the ABTC team has worked to develop an in-house process to extract battery-grade lithium from domestic Nevada-based deposits. The company has owned land and leased mining claims with lithium-bearing resources throughout Nevada for many years, however simply having access to battery metal resources does not in itself contribute to addressing our global challenges. The majority of brine and surface sedimentary deposits in Nevada are considered unconventional, as their concentrations of lithium and the mechanisms by which the lithium is deposited within these host sites are very different than at established commercial-scale lithium product manufacturing sites. As a result, applying existing conventional process flowsheet technologies to these resources would have resulted in extraction and conversion processes that were not economically competitive in the current market.

To address this challenge, ABTC chose to develop new processes based specifically targeted at these types of lithium-bearing resources rather than adopt existing conventional processes. The resulting development led to ABTC’s current in-house developed process for the manufacturing of battery-grade lithium.

The domestic production of battery-grade lithium materials is important in supporting the burgeoning battery manufacturing industry. ABTC is excited to have entered into a collaborative agreement with GEMC in order to undergo a similar procedure of developing new first-of-kind processes for producing battery cathode grade nickel and cobalt metal sulphates from resources held by GEMC.

In parallel to the development stage work of its battery metal extraction technologies division, ABTC will continue to focus on the construction and commercialization of its lithium-ion battery recycling pilot plant in Fernley, NV. When operations commence, ABTC’s pilot plant will be scaled to process 20K metric tons of feedstock per year, which will produce battery-grade materials to be redeployed into the North American battery supply chain.

American Battery Technology Company has built a clean technology platform that increases the production of primary metals used in the batteries that power electric cars, grid storage applications, and consumer electronics and tools.

Global Energy Metals Corp. offers investors exposure to the growing rechargeable battery and electric vehicle market by building a diversified global portfolio of exploration and growth-stage battery mineral assets.