LiCo Energy acquires 100% interest in cobalt property from Glencore

LiCo Energy Metals Inc. [LIC-TSXV, WCTXF-OTCQB] on Monday March 5 said it has formally completed its obligations to Glencore Canada Corp. under a mineral property acquisition agreement dated August 31, 2017 and announced on September 5, 2017.

The property agreement allows LiCo to acquire a 100% interest in the mining rights for the Glencore Bucke property in Bucke Twp., 6 km east of Cobalt, Ontario.

The purchase agreement includes a back-in provision, production royalty and an off-take agreement in favour of Glencore, which ranks as one of the world’s largest producers of cobalt. Glencore Canada is a subsidiary of Glencore Plc of Baar, Switzerland

“We are very excited to acquire this strategically located cobalt property from Glencore,” said LiCo President and CEO Tim Fernback. “If all goes as planned, we could be selling our cobalt produced back to Glencore in the future.”

Strategically, the Glencore Bucke property consists of 16.2 hectares and sits along the west boundary of LiCo’s Teledyne Cobalt Project. Teledyne covers the southern extension of the former producing 15 Vein on the past producing Aguanico Mine property.

Historically, the Aguanico Mine produced 4,350,000 pounds of cobalt and 980,000 ounces of silver during the mining boom of the early 1900s.

In the early 1980s, Glencore Bucke was explored by 38 surface diamond drill holes, totalling 3,323 metres. The drilling program outlined two separate vein systems hosting significant cobalt and silver values. The two zones are known as the Main Zone, measuring 152.4 metres in length, and the Northwest Zone, measuring 70 metres in length.

During the fall of 2017, the company completed 21 diamond drill holes, totalling 1,900 metres at Glencore Bucke. This drill program, along with the Phase 1 diamond drilling program completed on the Teledyne Cobalt Property satisfied LiCo’s flow-through financing obligations as well as the contractual obligations to Glencore.

Drilling last year returned some of the best cobalt values encountered so far at the two properties. Highlights from Teledyne include 2.32% cobalt over 4.00 metres from 126.5 to 130.5 metres, including 21.9% cobalt over 0.36 metres in hole number TE17-05.

Drill hole TE17-04 returned 1.82% cobalt over 6.00 metres from 138.00 to 144. metres, including 5.06% cobalt over 1.75 metres from 141.25 to 143.00, and 18.7% cobalt over 0.15 metres from 141.64 to 141.79 metres in drill hole TE17-04.

LiCo Energy Metals is a grassroots Canadian company that conducts exploration for metals used in the production of lithium-ion batteries.  Exploration of these metals has become critical in the face of surging demand for electric vehicles, cell-phones, and many other modern devices.

The junior has four ongoing projects in mining friendly jurisdictions in Canada, the United States and Chile.

Aside from the Ontario properties Lico’s asset portfolio includes the Dixie Valley Exploration project in Churchill County, Nevada, about 160 km northeast of Reno. This is an early-stage conceptual lithium brine project covering 2,817 hectares of ground. The target is a lithium brine model based on Clayton Valley (Nevada) and several basins in South America.