ASX: CC9 - Chariot Resources
- Matt Birney
- 8 hours ago
- 3 min read
Chariot Resources: Massive lithium grades, a big Chinese chequebook and an ASX company
Chariot Resources Executive Chairman Shanthar Pathmanathan on 3AW, 2GB, 4BC & 6PR Bulls N' Bears Report
ASX-listed Chariot Resources Executive Chairman Shanthar Pathmanathan talks to Matt Birney on Bulls N’ Bears about Chariot’s potential deal with big Chinese players who want to fund and trial mine its Nigerian lithium project.
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Chariot Resources is building lithium projects across Nigeria and the United States, where its two core projects are Black Mountain in Wyoming and Resurgent in both Nevada and Oregon. Nigeria however could be where the rubber first hits the road for Chariot after it signed a term sheet with two Chinese interests that could see one of three Nigerian prospects drilled and potentially trial-mined with partner funding with an offtake at the backend.
RADIO INTERVIEW - TRANSCRIPT
Matt Birney - Welcome to Bulls N' Bears, brought to you today by lithium explorer Chariot Resources
Matt Birney - ASX code: CC9
Matt Birney - I'm Matt Birney and I'm joined now by the Executive Chairman of Chariot Resources, Shanthar Pathmanathan.
Matt Birney - Hi Shanthar.
Shanthar Pathmanathan - Hi Matt, pleasure.
Matt Birney - Okay, so Chariot Resources is building lithium projects across Nigeria and the US, where its two core projects are Black Mountain in Wyoming and Resurgent in both Nevada and Oregon. Nigeria, however, could be where the rubber first meets the road for Chariot after it signed a term sheet recently with two Chinese interests that could see at least one of three Nigerian projects drilled and potentially trial mined with partner funding and an offtake agreement attached at the back end.
Matt Birney - All right, Shanthar, we'll get to that deal in a minute, but firstly, what early signs of lithium do you have at your Nigerian projects?
Shanthar Pathmanathan - There's abundant signs there Matt, as reported at surface. The surface sampling has shown what appears to be a high-grade system at mineralisation at surface. It's been previously artisanally mined and they're very, they're large systems. We're looking at huge play. So 6 kilometre strike system at Fonlo, multiple kilometres at Iganna, plenty of work to be done there.
Matt Birney - And what sort of grades have you shown in the past on these projects?
Shanthar Pathmanathan - To give you an example, 6.46% high grade at Fonlo and 2.32% average grade. Iganna 6.48% an average grade of 2.67% lithium oxide. So that's an exceptionally high-grade system.
Matt Birney - Mm, certainly good numbers. Now there are three commercial players yourself included in this term sheet that Chariot has just signed. Let's start with drilling and trial mining. Who brings the chequebook for those activities and why?
Shanthar Pathmanathan - ZhongNuo is the company, their parent company remains undisclosed at this point. They own a sizeable flotation plant producing lithium concentrate at 5% lithium oxide. Their current mine is being depleted, they need another dedicated feedstock source. They'll fund trial exploration, 1500 meters of diamond drilling, and they'll fund the trial mining. They've got the fleet, they've got 40 trucks, hauler trucks, etc. They'll do the work as well and do the mining and they will share in the revenue.
Matt Birney - Okay, well speaking mining, who will you sell it to?
Shanthar Pathmanathan - The biggest boon in this deal is C&D, the largest buyer of lithium on the planet, state-owned Chinese company. They're already buying lithium from ZhongNuo. They're a global Fortune 500 company. They're going to be sole offtaker and they will pay into a Singapore company and the revenue from that will get split from the Singapore vehicle that is being established.
Matt Birney - Right. So this is direct shipping, you don't have to process it, you just dig it and sell it and I think you said the deal was up to a maximum of 240,000 tonnes of dirt. What does this stuff sell for globally? Is there a benchmark for it?
Shanthar Pathmanathan - Yeah, so the Shanghai Metals market price for this is about $150 minimum at today's lithium carbonate price. But for grade of say 1.5% which we've modelled the numbers on, it's around $250 a tonne and if the grade gets higher, it gets closer to $1,000 per tonne of direct shipping ore.
Matt Birney - Shanthar Pathmanathan from Chariot Resources
Matt Birney - Thanks for joining me on Bulls N' Bears and remember, we're only here to give you information, not advice, which you should of course seek independently.
Matt Birney - I'm Matt Birney and this is Bulls N' Bears.
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