So what about countries more exposed to Australia, ready to play the part of a geopolitical defensive?

There, investors will be likely looking for a company perhaps already boasting a household name over-the-counter (OTC) medicine on its books, and maybe even an expansive product catalogue including Australia’s leading lubricating eyedrop.

Other strong value propositions would be for the stock to have a history of consistent revenue growth, a disinclination towards capital raises – and – even an overlooked $15M R&D pipeline. Plus: eight other drugs in development, as well as up to eighty licences in other countries.

If that’s enough to get your attention, it’s time to look at AFT Pharmaceuticals (ASX:AFP). 

Here’s a company that, despite its small status, could easily be considered a ‘mini-Pfizer.’ 

And it has the potential to grow as large as the real deal. 

Founded in 1997 by Hartley Atkinson – if the rumours are to be believed, from his very own garage alongside his wife – AFT Pharma has had a long-running presence both in Australia, and, on the ASX. 

Atkinson boasts a Doctorate in pharmacology and a Masters in Pharmaceutical Chemistry; credentials he picked up at the University of Otago, New Zealand.

Formerly a pharmaceutical researcher at Christchurch Hospital, and, all-rounder executive at Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche, Atkinson clearly brings pedigree to his duties as founding chief of AFT Pharma.

For those playing from home, your kitchen medicine drawer might be closer tied to AFT Pharmaceuticals than you may think. The company owns Maxigesic, the paracetamol-ibuprofen combination available OTC at pharmacies Australia-wide.

And Maxigesic, in a way, taps into the original vision underpinning the company. That vision, principally, was to develop an opioid-free pain relief alternative for the Australian, and global, markets. 

Looking at Purdue pharma’s legal troubles, Atkinson’s cautious approach to addictive substances was nothing but prescient. But the man himself is humble on that front.

“[We] really wanted to introduce, and produce, drugs that help people and improve their health,” Hartley summarised to HotCopper.

“We were always very concerned about opioids. We thought they were a problem potentially, and one of our key projects has been the introduction and development of [an] analgesic that avoids the requirements for opioids.”

For those playing at home, that’s Maxigesic: a combination of paracetamol and ibuprofen, drugs far safer than opioids when it comes to overdose risk; addiction risk and overall more beneficial for health. 

First and foremost worth noting is that AFT Pharma has licences in up to 80 countries. That alone speaks for itself, and even with some uncertainty in the space coming out of the US at this time, the company remains exposed to Australia, New Zealand, China, Asia ex-China, Europe, and of course, the United States. 

Atkinson is also of the view the market broadly has failed to recognise AFT Pharma as a research and development company, with a $15M R&D pipeline at any given time. 

“We’re a lot smaller [than Pfizer] obviously,” Atkinson was quick to concede to HotCopper.

“The key thing, though, is that we do fund our R&D – we have extensive R&D with eight major projects in drug development funded out of profits.

“We’ve got a number of new operations around the globe and we’re investing money into those as well.”

That the company is big on research is, perhaps, evidenced by its patent base, and extensive product catalogue. 

On top of a leading painkiller brand and eyedrops, AFT is also behind: 

If you were wondering why the company bills itself as a ‘mini-Pfizer,’ that should be becoming clear.

But the prestige of its foundational member isn’t what AFT Pharmaceuticals needs to rely on. In fact, unlike some other biotech stocks, it can point to its fundamentals as testament to value proposition.

Consistent revenue growth and a profitable position are enviable for many biotech and pharmaceutical stocks (or health care if you prefer), and with a twelve monthly coming out on May 22nd, investors will be watching on.

Perhaps first and foremost worthy to note for biotech investors potentially interested in AFT, is that the company isn’t particularly fond of dilutive capital raises.

“We’re pretty careful the way we allocate capital … and we don’t raise capital either,” Atkinson said.

“We’re able to fund [operations] out of profits. Some of it’s assigned towards R&D, we spend about $15 million a year on R&D and we’re also spending money on our expansions as well.

“We’re starting up in Canada, we’ve been going in the UK for a few years, we bought a company in South Africa … we purchased [a] company in Europe about a year ago, and we’re able to do this, once again, all out of existing cash flows.”

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Disclaimer: HotCopper had a commercial relationship with AFT Pharmaceuticals at the time this article was created and published.

At the forefront of that is one company, Almonty Industries. It is one of the few players actually doing something about it. They’re pushing their Sangdong Project in South Korea towards production in the next two months, building what could be the most significant non-Chinese tungsten source on the map. And with a fresh strategic alliance in the US defense sector, and a just locked in move to domesticate into the US, Almonty isn’t positioning, it’s advancing.

To break down the stakes, the supply chain war, and what investors keep missing, we’re joined by someone who’s never shy about calling it like it is. Christopher Ecclestone, Strategist at Hallgarten + Company is here with us today. Christopher, welcome to the show.

Lyndsay: So, let’s actually just jump right into this. Let’s start with critical metals. What’s the real cost of falling behind in securing supply and who really stands to lose the most?

Christopher: You know, the West has become enormously reliant in recent decades upon the attitude of just in time as an industrial strategy and also that you didn’t have to do anything to ensure your supply chains. The attitude was that if China can produce it cheaper than anyone else, a mineral that is, we’ll buy from them, and it will always be available. And that has been a total fallacy and not only from the point of view that the Chinese have then got you by the throat, so to speak, and can potentially cut off supply. But in fact, China has been over exploiting some of these metals for decades now, as we’ve seen rare earths and antimony things. So, they’ve actually been destroying their own capabilities in the space. And the West has not wanted to make the investments required to refresh supplies.

And so, particularly in tungsten, we saw after the last price peak, which wasn’t actually all that high early last decade that a lot of tungsten production shut down because the prices were very poor. And they stayed at a very low level really until 2021, 2022 when they picked up a little bit, but they didn’t pick up a lot. And it certainly wasn’t an environment in which people could make a lot of money or even any money in the West. And so hardly anyone was doing anything in the tungsten space. There were very few explorers and many of the explorers that there had been when the last price peak was around gave up and went away because what was the use of finding a metal that in fact you couldn’t really bring to production because the price you’d get for production was so poor.

Lyndsay: Right, absolutely. Let’s shift over to geopolitical risk for a second here then. How are investors still treating tungsten like a side bet with the given and clearly national security asset that it’s become?

Christopher: For a long time, the metal was sold as being a metal that was used in machine tools. It was used in drill bits, it was used in other sorts of domestic tools, saws, drills, knives, cutters, that type of thing. But in fact, tungsten has been a military metal since before the Second World War. And in fact, it was extremely critical in the Second World War. It was one of the reasons why countries like Spain and Portugal could remain neutral in the Second World War because they were the main suppliers and they had a business of selling both to the Axis powers, Germany and Italy, and also selling to the Western powers. So they were making money on both sides during the Second World War. But the crucial factor with tungsten is its hardness.

So, the hardness works two ways in the military sense. One is you have shells and bullets and ballistics that are tungsten coated, and so they are then armor piercing. So, you can fire a shell that is made out of tungsten at a tank, and it will go right through the tank and achieve its goal. But then if it’s also used for armor, if you use it on armored personnel, carriers or tanks, then they become resistant to ammunition from your enemy. So you need it both to protect yourself in a defensive mode and in an offensive mode. And you know, big Western militaries used to have reserves, strategic reserves of this, and they got very slack. You know, particularly after 1989, there was much talk about the peace dividend.

There was no more cold war. It was the end of history. It was the end of war. There’d be no more big wars. And that was a big mistake because then they let their reserves run down. They let the sources that fed those reserves run down or close. You know, no mine is forever. And many tungsten mines just sort of like faded away and then were not replaced. And so, the military has left themselves in a very vulnerable position that if they didn’t have a big stockpile, then if there is a war, they won’t be prepared and they won’t have access to material.

Lyndsay: Absolutely. So, with that then, is there a reserve right now only in China, or is there a reserve that Almonty now with their nearing production mine, is that one of the production goals? To create enough now to have that reserve away from the China supply chain?

Christopher: Yes, absolutely. You can have two types of reserves. One is a reserve that you buy the metal in the market, and you put it in a big warehouse somewhere. You know, the US Strategic Reserve of oil is very famous. The US used to have reserves of all sorts of strategic metals just in case there was a war. And really after 1989, as I mentioned, after the Vietnam War they thought, oh, we don’t need these anymore. So they either didn’t add to them or they ran them down and they thought, oh, we can use this money for other stuff. And so they did. And so that left those vulnerable. And the other type of reserve you can have is a reserve that’s in the ground, but when it’s in the ground, it has to be in a friendly nation because it’s useless to say we know that we have access to a reserve of tungsten in the DRC, for instance.

And then think that if there’s a war in 10 years or 20 years from now, you will still have access to that because these countries change their allegiances and you just don’t have access. So, you really need to have a reserve of ore if it’s going to be in the ground, that is in the ground of a friendly nation. And the US has lots of friends, but you know, sometimes who’s a friend changes, but in the case of Korea in particular, Korea is a long-term ally of the US. And so that is the big advantage for Almonty here because they will be producing from a mine that was formally a mine, it was a mine for many decades and then shut down because of poor pricing and other factors. And it’s that mine now that Almonty’s going again.

So, this demand for the product of Almonty out of Korea from not only Korean industry, this Korean industry of course is massive. It’s a big industrial power. Japan, which is right nearby and of course in the US and the rest of the West. So, Almonty’s customers potentially for Sangdong offtake sort of go well around the block in a line of Western and non-Chinese really industrial nations that need and want a source of tungsten that is not subject to Chinese whims.

Lyndsay: Oh, that’s the thing. Absolutely. They’ve definitely aligned themselves where they need to be, for sure.

Christopher: Yes.

Lyndsay: Let’s talk a little bit further about that Sangdong mine. They are nearing production. How much disruption should the incumbents brace for once this project goes live?

Christopher: Well, it’s very interesting you mention that because if we went back three years ago, we would’ve said, oh, China’s happily supplying tungsten to the West, and all is beautiful in the world. Now tungsten of course, is what is called dual use by the Chinese. Basically, meaning that it has industrial usages, machine tools, but it also has military usages. And the Chinese have decided to put a clamp down on the supply of dual use material particularly to the US because that was in a sort of response to some dual use bans that the US imposed on things like semiconductors and other industrial and technological products.

So, it’s a bit of a tit for tat action going on there, but what it’s done is it’s really focused mines in the West upon who is your friend, who is not your friend, who can produce something that if the bullets start to fly, you can actually call them up and say we need some tungsten, can you supply it? Certainly, if the bullets started flying between China and Taiwan, you wouldn’t be calling Beijing and saying, can you give us some tungsten to defend Taiwan? So obviously everyone’s starting to work out now which side they’re on, and Almonty’s on the right side.

Lyndsay: And it’s all about shifting dynamics. So, let’s lean into that one a little bit more. The American situation signals, as you mentioned, Almonty is no longer chasing contracts. It’s inserting itself into national security conversations. So how does this actually shift the company’s influence in a market where government ties are becoming just as valuable as production?

Christopher: Oh, yes, that’s the critical factor here. You know, Almonty was a bit of a strange beast for a long time. It was a company listed on the Canadian stock exchanges with a Canadian registration of the corporation. But its mines were in Spain and then it added a mine in Portugal. Now it’s adding the mine in Korea. But that didn’t necessarily put it in close contact with the Pentagon and the US Department of Defense and its needs. So, what they’ve done in recent times at Almonty, unfortunately for Canada, but Canada doesn’t provide Almonty with much of a market. Almonty was selling their products internationally to German and Swedish companies, and now they’ve redomiciled themselves from Canada to the US, which makes them a US corporation.

And turns what was the largest Canadian tungsten producer that was not producing in Canada into the largest US tungsten producer, which is nevertheless not producing in the US either. But once you’re on shore in the US and we’ve seen this major sort of shift in recent times away from offshoring back to onshoring. Having both your corporate office there and a close relationship with Washington, which is developing because Almonty have tied up with firm in Washington that will give them a direct sort of entree to the powers that make the purchasing decisions in Washington.

Almonty is now seen not only as being in an allied nation Canada which a member of NATO, but it’s actually becoming a US corporation, which puts it squarely in the tick, tick, tick checklist of the DOD, the Department of Defense, the Defense Logistics Agency, which buys for the DOD and the Pentagon, which basically is the brains of the US military industrial complex.

Lyndsay: I mean, those are great partnerships to have and great insights that you’re giving us here. Now that the US domestication has been cleared, what does this mean for its access to federal backing and defense driven capital? You touched on it a little bit, but let’s explore that a little bit more if we could.

Christopher: Well, it’s a great backstop for Almonty because prices have improved in the tungsten sector, so that’s a big positive for them. But if you want to expand and get even bigger then you need access to funds. And over the years, with the price of tungsten not being great and profitability being low in the sector Almonty had a long and hard road despite its own conviction about the future of tungsten to finance its projects. Fortunately though, Sangdong is fully financed and it’s really off to the races, but it’s always better to have a guaranteed buyer, and particularly one of the best guaranteed buyers who always will pay the invoice when you send it to them is the US military.

And so that’s a great position to be in. But beyond Sangdong, Almonty has its former mine in Spain, which it would like to reopen in a different format to the way that it was operating before. And it also has another project in Spain, a big, identified tungsten resource, which it could also reopen to service not only demand from the European militaries, but from the US military. And to put it in perspective many of the predictions of tungsten industry growth in recent years have been 1% per year, 2% per year. And last year, defense spending around the world grew by 9.4%. So that is a quantum leap from what was viewed as being sort of a low growth industry.

Defense is now like one of the highest growth industries out there, and it’s one that’s being prioritized as well, and one that has governments behind it. And as we know, governments, if they need to, as we saw in the pandemic, can find money and are dedicated to a course that they regard as crucial. And definitely defense is a national number one issue in most countries around the world now. And it wasn’t a few years ago.

Lyndsay: Absolutely. So that’s where the line gets drawn right there. Critical metals like tungsten aren’t just resources anymore. They’re leverage, they’re essential. They are here to stay. So the players who control supply chains will control the outcome and the clock ticking on who gets there first. Yes, so Almonty’s not just moving, they’re moving with intent and the market needs them.

Christopher: Yes, and they’ve moved ahead of the pack because many of the other tungsten wannabes, because the price was so bad for so long are not advanced at all. And when they’re on the verge opening another big mine, because it’s already got a mine in Portugal. One that’s functioning at the moment. But most of the other tungsten wannabes have nothing more than some 43-101’s saying that they might have something. Almonty’s the real deal.

Lyndsay: And there we have it. Thank you so much for joining us today, Christopher. It’s been a pleasure.

Christopher: Most welcome.

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The company recently received shareholder approval to redomicile from Canada to the United States, signalling a major strategic shift.

Then last week, Almonty announced a new collaboration with American Defense International, ADI. And even more recently in Week 13, the company welcomed U.S. General Gustave F. Perna, to its board of directors; a significant move that has turned quite a few heads in the defense and resource sectors.

With trade picking up and tungsten’s price climbing, there’s a lot to talk about.

Lyndsay Malchuk with Stockhouse Publishing recently sat down with Lewis Black, CEO of Almonty to discuss all of these riveting developments.

Lyndsay: Why don’t we actually start with the company’s latest announcements and the growing interest from the defense sector. I think the big question here stands as, is Almonty still purely a resource company or are we now looking at the beginnings of a defense focused enterprise?

Lewis: I’ve done this a long time. I’m the last man standing I’ve been very successful in the tungsten space. Our mines make money and traditionally I was the primary source outside of China and Russia and North Korea for my customers who were best known for building, you know, cars and planes and medical and you know, really making an impact on the planet. But I found myself in the last eight months now being dragged into a geopolitical tug of war that doesn’t just include the US and China, but also you’ve got to throw in the EU into the mix because tungsten is the primary metal for all hardware munitions and armor. And of course, if you have any kind of military program, you of course require munitions and armor. And this is uncharted waters for us as a company and for our sector because now tungsten is no longer commercially desirable as much as it is national security desirable. And given we are the only party in town, we are trying to navigate through lots of people who are being very nice to us right now. But at some point you’re going to have to say no to somebody, and on that basis, you don’t know what their response is going to be. So, in answer to your question in a short answer, we are an involuntary defense stock now.

Lyndsay: There seems to be a significant interest from the United States in securing future tungsten supplies, especially with that partnership with ADI and the addition of General Perna. So do you believe this is raising concerns or even pressure among other nations, particularly in Europe then?

Lewis: I think absolutely. And I mean, one of the reasons we’ve engaged ADI, which is the US’s largest defense lobbyist, and they only do one other mine, which is Mountain Pass. Everyone else in their portfolio of nearly a hundred companies are the biggest defense contractors in the United States. And with General Perna, we have another announcement coming as well shortly to add to that team is because we are trying to fully understand how to correctly integrate into this nexus of defense in the US it’s an extremely complex logistical area and it has been impressed upon us within the United States that we find ways to seamlessly integrate, and it’s much easier to use experts who know really how to navigate through it than trying to do it on our own. As for the EU, yes, the EU are also looking quite anxiously.

And so I suppose in a perfect world, I would like to feel that the output from our Korean project is going to amply provide for the US defense space and our project in Portugal and Spain later on when it’s opened, we’ll provide a defense solution in Europe. And I mean, that’s perfect thinking. That’s on the basis that everybody remains calm and friends. But my initial approach is to follow the direction that’s being intimated to me, to find ways to seamlessly integrate into this. And as I said, Mountain Pass has done it very well. And we’re very fortunate that ADI chose to take us on as only their second line.

Lyndsay: Well, have you seen any early reactions from all of this?

Lewis: From the, the, the US government? Next week I have to go to Washington again. I don’t want to talk too much about all the things that we’re up to because well, I don’t want to start checking under my car every time I sort of leak the house. But I think what we are doing is really important. I mean, to me, despite my accent, actually am American, it’s important to me. And I know in this day and age, it’s unfashionable to do something for the right reason. I know it’s just not considered to be a great idea, but I’m a shareholder first and foremost, I’m seeing great value added to the business because of the fact that we are now a defense stock.

And on top of that, we’re going to do something really important. We are going to provide a solution, a very short term solution, because we are opening in two to three months for a defense dose. And we can provide the same for Europe as well. So, you know, it feels good that we see an accretion of value and we also see that we’re doing something for the right reason, not just, for the free market. We’re doing something I think important and I want to make sure I do it right.

Lyndsay: So what we really want to know is what the actual sentiment is in the tungsten market right now with China’s export restrictions, making those headlines. What are you hearing, what are you experiencing right now within the industry?

Lewis: Well, that’s very interesting. It’s really a kind of a catch-22, the kind of companies that consume tungsten, a very large corporations, and they’re involved in many different areas of the economy, both in their domestic environment and internationally. If you acknowledge publicly that you have a problem, it’s weakness and it tells a competitor potentially with more inventory than you, that your market share can be attacked. So publicly, everything is fine. Nothing to see here. We’re all good. I know that the CCP has restricted the export of tungsten, but not to me, I’ve been buying there for 25 years. Doesn’t count to me. Everyone else. But I went to the wedding anniversary of my suppliers. My children are named after them. And then privately you have an interesting situation.

Privately you have two ways you can go. One, you can tell yourself that everything’s going to be okay. This is just a Trump blip. It’s all going to pass any minute now, you know, everyone’s going to be friends and it’ll be business as usual. And then you can sleep well at night, or you can go into a kind of a very discreet panic because you don’t have a plan B because there no plan B. So it’s one thing if there was a plan B and you knew that a plan B should have existed, but you chose to feed your addiction to the cheap and readily available material from a wonderful supplier, which was China, which is China or has been China. They always had inventory. They worked seven days a week, they didn’t break for summer holidays. If you needed something, they put it on a boat and they even put maybe a small gift in there, a bottle of wine.

And everybody was happy because it was an easy addiction to take. And now that you are looking at the fact that maybe your dealer is not perhaps as available as you would like, you don’t have an alternative source. So in my customers publicly, everyone’s called privately, who knows, some are telling themselves everything will be all right on the night and others have started drinking. But either way, this problem doesn’t go away. Now China has put into a mechanism with these export permits regarding dual use, which is military use, which pretty much covers every customer I have, even if they’re not directly involved with the military, they may supply braking parts for armored vehicles that counts under Chinese rules. So I think China has a mechanism to basically say no tungsten for you if they so choose, and they’ll use our own rules, WTO rules against us. And this must be a terrifying predicaments that some of the biggest corporations on the planet now find themselves in. They got rich from cheap raw materials, and now the source of those raw materials are saying, you know what? You’re not treating us the way we want to be treated, so no more for you. And I think this is outside of my pay grade, but this is not easy for them to be honest.

Lyndsay: So how is that shaping the outlook for producers like Almonty then?

Lewis: We’ve got a lot more friends than we used to, that’s for sure. Until we don’t, because we’re have to say no to somebody at some point. I think the people who got behind us, like the Plansee Group who really supported us from years ago they would say by judgment, some would say by luck. But they called this many years ago, and they gave us an opportunity to build the world’s largest tungsten mine. And they were instrumental in us being able to convince KfW IPEX the premier, tier one project finance lender in the world to back us. And I think for us, geopolitics is a great positive, but there’s also a negative side. And I think it’s always important to look at that negative side. If my customers are starved to death, who do I sell to?

And I think China is a fierce competitor now for Western concentrate. They’re about to change a regulation in China to allow them to also feed from Western scrap the approach now rather than the collapse the price that they did in lithium or rare earths, which is to drive capital out of our sector is in fact to starve my customers from feed. And so it’s great for us. It almost certainly means that we are going to become irresistible to multiple suitors just for their survival. But it’s also quite terrifying that we’ve got ourselves into a place where we don’t have a plan B. And even with Trump’s announcement to develop domestic resources quicker, it takes years. I mean, whether we like it or not, this is not a widget factory. This is a mine. There’s a real process here that you have to respect and follow to build into democracy.

Lyndsay: We’ve reported a lot on one of your projects, the Sangdong Mine is receiving a great deal of attention around the globe and is expected to enter into production in 2025. I mean, the demand is obviously there and you mentioned maybe two to three months. So when exactly do you project actual production to begin from that?

Lewis: I’m an operator. You never want to jinx it. Two to three months you’ll see material coming out of there. And then 12 months after that, you’ll see phase two come online. So phase two is a doubling of our output. A lot of the work for phase two has already been done in phase one. So it’s something we show KfW that you could actually build something bigger for the same money because the cost of grinding circuits is negligible. The difference between 1.2 million tons a year and 640,000 thousand tons a year is pretty much the same. So it took a while to get them over that hurdle because they’ve never actually financed a project that actually was built for a bigger capacity for the same money. But then we’ve always been a bit unorthodox in Almonty.

We’ve always been very nimble. We’ve stayed away from the funds and the traditional ways. We have one of the highest liquidities of a junior in Canada now. We are quoted by every tier one publication. We have guys like ADI and General Perna who are way above our pay grade, you know, who are happily joining us because we are unorthodox. And that’s why we’ve been successful. And I think one of the things I say to everybody, whether people like it or not, and I hate to blow my own trumpet, but I’m quite unique in the junior mining space because I’m a shareholder first and foremost, I put millions of dollars of my own money into this. And so when I get out of bed, I’m getting out of bed as a shareholder. And that’s why our stock has responded so well.

It’s why we have this liquidity, because I’m first and foremost a retail guy. That’s what I am. I mean, yes, I run the company because, well, someone had to do it and I care enough to keep the value. I mean, someone said to me earlier, what they found unique about Almonty was that we did an IPO what, more than 10 years ago in the TSX. And we still have those same shareholders, and they’re all in the money. I mean, normally with juniors 10 years in, you’ve burned through three or four sets of shareholders, but our guys are still there and they’re in the money, which is unheard of. So that’s, I think, a very long-winded answer to your question.

Lyndsay: What about politically speaking? You said that it is a bit of a benefit, but tell us the biggest challenges you’re facing right now and what Almonty is doing to navigate through the never ending moving targets right now.

Lewis: That’s why we’re trying to bring ADI in. We bring ADI in and general Perna to help us and the contacts and that we’re trying to navigate through it. I don’t pick aside in terms of, well, of course, obviously North Korea and China, you know, it’s a bit different. But ultimately, I’m trying to make sure that the defense sectors in the EU and the US have what they need if they want it.

I’m, I’m putting forward a solution that won’t require taxpayer money or risk. I have it, it’s available, it’s not tied to off takes and we’re just trying to find the best mechanism to ensure the distribution of that material to the people that it needs to get to. And this is uncharted waters. I’m going to do it slowly and methodically and correctly, but my plan is that we have a solution for these defense sectors in these territories. We don’t require 10 years to do it. It’s almost instantaneous. And this way it ensures that my legacy when I’m taken out in my pine box at one point in the future is that we at least provided an option for national security defense for a country that I’m a part of in America and the EU where we’ve operated for 136 years in Portugal.

Almonty last traded at $2.35 through this morning.

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The material provided in this article is for information only and should not be treated as investment advice. Viewers are encouraged to conduct their own research and consult with a certified financial advisor before making any investment decisions. For full disclaimer information, please click here.

Join the discussion: See what’s trending right now on Australia’s largest stock forum and be part of the conversations that move the markets.

The material provided in this article is for information only and should not be treated as investment advice. Viewers are encouraged to conduct their own research and consult with a certified financial advisor before making any investment decisions. For full disclaimer information, please click here.

Join the discussion: See what’s trending right now on Australia’s largest stock forum and be part of the conversations that move the markets.

The material provided in this article is for information only and should not be treated as investment advice. Viewers are encouraged to conduct their own research and consult with a certified financial advisor before making any investment decisions. For full disclaimer information, please click here.

To talk about today’s big news and what it means, The Market Online’s Lyndsay Malchuk sat down with Almonty’s “thrilled” President and CEO Lewis Black.

Above is Ms Malchuk’s Capital Compass interview with Mr Black on the Almonty news.

Join the discussion: See what’s trending right now on Australia’s largest stock forum and be part of the conversations that move the markets.

The material provided in this article is for information only and should not be treated as investment advice. Viewers are encouraged to conduct their own research and consult with a certified financial advisor before making any investment decisions. For full disclaimer information, please click here.

To talk about the global tungsten market, Almonty Industries (ASX:AII), and more, The Market Online’s Lyndsay Malchuk sat down with Sphene Capital analyst Peter Thilo.

Above is Lyndsay’s Capital Compass conversation with Mr Thilo on the big 2025 topic.

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As a result, many miners and explorers decided to let their lithium assets fade into the background, concentrating on other projects while the market remained in a slump.

But analysts are now suggesting a turnaround might be in the works, given growing demand for electric vehicles – particularly in China, where they, and plug-in hybrids, now account for 52.8% of overall sales.

This demand is set to soak up the oversupply of lithium which caused the price fall in the first place, with the latter expected to stabilise in 2025, presenting those working in the sector with decisions to make.

China is the world’s largest auto market, and it is undeniable that a key trend in recent years has been the public’s move into buying electric vehicles.

This has largely been shaped by Beijing policy, with the government calling for half of all vehicles on Chinese roads to be clean cars by 2025.

To bolster this, they have offered consumers subsidies to buy EVs. In July 2024, the subsidies were doubled, and this led to sales of five million EVs by December.

Overall, China saw its domestic sales in this space leap 31% year-on-year in the first 9 months of 2024.

Within this context, experts are predicting a fall in the world’s supply of lithium carbonate (LCE) from 150,000 tonnes in 2024 to 80,000 tonnes this year, as Chinese demand ‘soaks’ this up.

Of course, since November there has been another key factor to watch: The incoming presidency of Donald Trump, and the question of how he’ll approach the question of renewable energy.

On the campaign trail, he suggested tariffs of up to 60% may be applied against goods from China – including EVs – but recently, he scaled this back to 10%.

However, he has also revoked Joe Biden’s 2021 executive order which called for EVs to make up half of all vehicles sold in the United States by the end of 2030 – an order which had been expected to push up demand.

In November, Trump said his transition team would scupper a US$7,500 consumer tax credit for EV purchases – itself part of larger tax reforms rolled out by the former Biden administration.

The overarching question is whether Chinese and other demand will be enough to keep lithium on track in terms of supply and price stabilisation.

At this stage, analysts predict it will be.

In the midst of this is Chariot Corporation Ltd (ASX:CC9) – a company that has the largest lithium landholding in the U.S., and which has, even during the downturn in prices, remained true to the critical mineral.

Managing director Shanthar Pathmanathan said the board’s decision to sit tight and increase its portfolio – which is mainly built around seven hard rock lithium exploration projects in the state of Wyoming, as well as claystone lithium play Resurgent in Nevada and Oregon – would pay off in the end.

“I see a great recovery happening in lithium: The sector’s been through two tough years since 2022,” the Chariot managing director said.

“We have tripled down during this downturn, we have grown our portfolio.”

Mr Pathmanathan said he sees there still being demand in the American domestic market, with the lithium mine sector set to produce lithium batteries for the first time.

This would only bolster the international trend, he says − “We see a resurgence in global EV demand: In China, 50% of cars are electric vehicles, in the U.K., 24% are electric vehicles, so we think we’re at the tipping point of electric vehicle adoption all around the world, we’re very well-placed globally for the lithium industry.”

Looking ahead, Mr Pathmanathan said the incoming government would also be a gamechanger.

“There are great opportunities here,” he said.

“I think short term they’re going to be resistant to electric vehicles. The new government’s mandate is to bring jobs back to the U.S. – manufacturing jobs. I think what they will do is continue with the IRA, continue with the battery plant build-out in the United States and look to take advantage of this.

“In the medium to long term… there will be a shift back to the electric vehicle industry because it’s a new industry the U.S. can dominate as it does in other industries.”

While keeping its portfolio whole and balance sheet in check had served Chariot well during the price slump, the board is now enthusiastic about its upcoming drilling work at both the flagship Black Mountain project and Resurgent.

The former is built around 352 unpatented lode mining claims featuring multiple outcropping pegmatites known to host spodumene, with previous (diamond) drilling demonstrating the presence of high-grade lithium originating near the surface.

Optimism about the project was there from the beginning, with grades of up to 6.68% recorded through rock chip sampling. The first drill hole also showed potential, yielding 15.48 metres at 1.12% lithium oxide (Li2O) from 2.74 metres, including 4.27 metres at 2.46% Li2O from 9.94 metres.

Mr Pathmanathan said this year’s work would build on this, with assays expected to come out by the end of the quarter.

“We’ve done two rounds of drilling now – the last one was completed a few weeks ago, and samples are in the lab right now,” he said.

“Our plans for Black Mountain remain unchanged: Defining a small-scale resource at the top of the mountain, launching a much larger drill program in the North American summer coming up, and thirdly, developing a pilot mine by 2026.”

He said the company also had plans to drill Resurgent during the same season, as well as divesting Horizon. They’re going to “triple down on lithium” too, “like we have over the last few years.”

“We are well-positioned, we’ve grown our portfolio, we’ve kept everything intact, the balance sheet hasn’t taken on too much damage with this lithium downturn, so we’re well-positioned for the upturn coming up,” Mr Pathmanathan promised.

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The ground’s being aggressively explored following a recent ‘bargain basement’ acquisition by WIN Metals Ltd (ASX:WIN) – and the company’s not disappointed, as it’s quickly adding up the ounces. Last count, 357,000 ounces, in fact.

Now before we tell you more about that, let’s look at what led WIN on a gold project treasure hunt – why it set out to find such an opportunity, when it already had promising projects primed for development.

It’s all about that often unpredictable commodity game. Shifts in demand and pricing can be difficult to foresee.

In recent years, commodity prices have seemed particularly volatile – it’s hard for companies to set a course, and there’s a whole lot of risk for investors.

What it means is that as commodities fall in and out of favour, mining and exploration companies need to quickly manoeuvre and adapt, always having one eye open for new opportunities as macro tailwinds pass and headwinds hit.  

Looking at right now: No one seems quite sure about the iron ore price, for example. And some of the big miners’ share prices have dampened as a result.

The copper price spiked last May but has pulled back over factors including Chile supplies, and uncertainty around what Trump’s mooted tariffs will mean for trade.

Of course, the lithium price is now miles below its highs of late 2022 – its boom/bust has been nothing short of dramatic.

Nickel had a fall from grace that’s hit companies including former market darling Chalice Mining (ASX:CHN) – hard. Plummeting from near USD$50,000 a tonne in May 2022, on news Indonesia had quickly grown its nickel sector breeding significant over-supply. This month it touched a four-year low of USD$15,000 a tonne.

Chalice had a share price above $8 on the Gonneville platinum group element (PGE), nickel, copper and cobalt discovery a couple of years back and the WA Government deemed it a ‘Strategic Project.’

Despite that validation, the share price is at $1.20. The Gonneville project, just 70km from Perth, remains at the pre-feasibility stage.

Before that dramatic crash, WIN had also built a solid nickel resource at its Mt Edwards project near Kalgoorlie in WA’s Southeastern Goldfields region. While that’s clearly not so exciting to investors right now, much like Chalice, the company’s management is confidently banking on a nickel resurgence one day. And it’s good to note the asset amid WIN’s overall project portfolio.

So WIN Metals (ASX:WIN) developed a first-rate nickel resource in Western Australia and it still has it. 

But WIN didn’t wait around when the nickel price fell; it knew it had to shift priorities – as fast as possible (while strictly sensible).

While knowing it had a strong nickel play (and lithium too – but that’s yet another story and another asset), WIN’s management made the call to pivot – and it has.

It has a gold resource to build up at its Butchers Creek project in WA’s far north.

We’ll talk about that opportunity amid a hot gold market in a moment, but what we emphasise in this story is that commodities are cyclical – and so by retaining out-of-favour assets and having diversity now, a company like WIN is primed to make the most of all these opportunities when everything aligns – when there’s a resurgence in demand for each. 

As MD and CEO Steve Norregaard says: There is immense “latent” value in WIN which can be quickly realised when the time is right.

WIN acquired Butchers Creek last August, and since then, has been busy moving through reconnaissance, resource definition, and exploration drilling work at the site near Halls Creek.

Of course, it’s never easy for companies that find themselves starting afresh to garner shareholder buy-in and excitement. It’s tough when you’re shedding legacy disappointments that stem largely from commodity boom and bust cycles outside a company’s control.

But Norregaard points out WIN was not going to stand still and wait for the nickel and lithium fortunes to turn around. Who knows when that will be? 

“Hope isn’t a good strategy and hoping that the nickel price would recover wasn’t on our agenda,” he says. 

“Less than two years ago the company had a market cap of over $100 million based on nickel and nickel alone. In the time that we’ve been listed, we’ve invested in that nickel resource, we’ve upgraded our resource base, we’ve completed a scoping study, and we’re primed ready for development.

“It might not be this year, it might not be next year, but there will be a day when nickel comes back into favour and for the company, it’s a huge amount of latent value. 

“I think Indonesia’s started to realise the error of their ways… that massive amount of nickel has seen the price come down so that even in Indonesia – they’re not making a substantial amount of money.

“So, we think the market will address that and we’ll see an uplift in the nickel price in the medium term.”

Here’s a good spot to mention the lithium WIN has in its portfolio too.

It’s at that same 240 square kilometre Mt Edwards project, which not only has a mineral resource estimate (MRE) of 13.04 million tonnes at 1.45% nickel for 188,160 tonnes of nickel, but also has the Faraday-Trainline lithium play; contiguous to Mt Edwards, and with an MRE of 1.96 million tonnes at 0.69% lithium oxide.

“We’re in a position where we didn’t expect to find any lithium. We made a maiden discovery and fast-tracked that to a position where we thought we had direct shipping opportunity,” he said.

“However, the lithium price beat us. Now that sits there as another asset in our portfolio.  

“Plus, there is an excellent amount of exploration upside from lithium perspective when you consider many of our neighbours in the region are very active in that space.”

Those neighbours include Mineral Resources (ASX:MIN) at Bald Hill and Mt Marion, Maximus Resources (ASX:MXR) to the north, Develop Global (ASX:DVP) to the south, and Kali Metals (ASX:KM1) on WIN’s eastern tenement boundary.

Norregaard and his team have been committed to ensuring whatever pivot was made, it was going to be worthwhile, with strong short-term upside potential.

With Butchers Creek, he says they’ve landed on a “forgotten” gold region. The project has a gold deposit that produced 52,000 ounces of gold from open pit mining over two years in the 1990s. Ripe for review.

“The location hasn’t seen any significant amount of exploration in the modern era,” Norregaard says.

“We’re certainly keen to see the real potential of the area.” 

Since moving in, WIN has been able to confirm a high-grade mineral resource of around 357,000 ounces (5.6 million tonnes at two grams per tonne) from two resource targets nearby.

They’ve also identified immediate near-mine drill targets, as well as multiple high-order opportunities from which to grow the resource base.

Within three months of moving in, WIN reported strong results from the Golden Crown North deposit, with all holes drilled intersecting high-grade gold. Better still, it could confirm high-grade mineralisation extended 140 metres below the Golden Crown resource, 40 metres deeper than previously modelled.

Intercepts included six metres at 10.85g/t of gold from 253 metres (140 metres below mineral resource), including three metres at 21.07g/t, and two metres at 5.05g/t from 240 metres. 

Late last year, WIN told investors about a second tranche of infill drilling, which had yielded results such as 98 metres at 1.47g/t of gold from 251 metres, including 13 metres at 2.99g/t; and 77 metres at 1.68g/t from 251 metres, including 11 metres at 2.51g/t – both at the central hinge and eastern limb areas.

Steve Norregaard believes the company could potentially have a large-scale discovery at Butchers Creek – to the point he’s happy to announce publicly that he has his sights set on production.

“We acquired the Butchers Creek gold project at a bargain basement price, and with an already established 350,000-ounce gold resource, of which a significant proportion is in indicated status,” he said. 

“We’ve hit the ground running; we’ve confirmed the resource in terms of drilling announcements that we’ve made to date. 

“Exploration upside in terms of seeing those resources grow is abundantly clear for us. 

“We can see those resources growing. From a greenfields perspective there are over 60 occurrences of gold on our tenure, so an abundance of exploration upside.

“Finding Butcher’s Creek has been a real positive for the company, but, I’ll say it again, the latent value within the company is second to none.”

Balancing these multiple projects certainly sets WIN up for a busy few years, but the company’s shifting strategy is what makes its story an exciting one, according to Norregaard.

“That’s the opportunity: From where we’ve been, we had to re-engineer the company moving in a new direction,” he said.

“The real opportunity is to see a large gold resource – we know it is one that has the capacity to grow – along with that latent value in our nickel assets.  

“All-in-all that really makes it an opportunity that if the time’s right, and if nickel was to make a slight resurgence, there’s a huge amount of value in this organisation.” 

WIN’s ability to make this transition will be supported by a solid executive team, which brings together multiple areas of experience within mining and corporate spheres. 

“Many of the individuals behind the organization come from a production background,” Mr Norregaard said.

“We’ve got a strong diverse array of skills at board level, with a chairman that has a corporate background, an exploration geologist and a processing engineer, so we cover all the spectrums.” 

Make no mistake, Norregaard is determined to WIN amid this gold rush, this time around. 

WIN has been trading at 1.9 cents.

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Through this Capital Compass conversation, Canada’s Lydnsay spoke to Mr Black about the global tungsten market, geopolitical struggles and more.

TMO: Welcome, Lewis. It’s great to have you join me today. So, I tuned in and watched you on the IIF recently. You gave such an insightful presentation. Job well done for sure.

Lewis Black: Well, it’s a relatively easy story to replicate each time. So, when you have something that works, it’s very easy to talk about it.

TMO: Well, when there’s passion behind the words, that makes it easy too. Let’s dive a little bit more into all of that and begin with the global tungsten market overview. How would you describe the global tungsten market currently? And also, what key trends do you foresee shaping its future? 

Black: Well, tungsten right now in the West, it’s down because demand is down because the car sector and the aerospace sector are a little bit in the doldrums. There’s sort of a legacy of Covid and a global economy of higher interest rates. But what we have seen is a significant increase in defense consumption and in electronic technology consumption. And I know EV batteries are all the watch word, but predominantly semiconductors and the tungsten copper wire that’s now used for all electronics, including these semiconductors because it’s a nano size fraction. So, I think what we’re going to see is as demand picks up in the West, in the more traditional sectors like cars and aerospace there’s going to be a significant supply deficit. 

TMO: And so, with all of that, there are always the geopolitical challenges. So, we know that China has dominated tungsten production for decades and now has limited sales direct or indirect to the US. How significant is this disruption to the tungsten supply chain for the US economy? 

Black: Well, it’s unclear at the moment because it’s never happened before. So, I suppose what people are going to have to try and see is what does it all really mean? I think the issue is that the supply chain for transparent tungsten hasn’t gone away. And you’re quite correct between China, Russia and North Korea, they account for over 90% of production worldwide. So given that those three countries are not right now terribly aligned with the rest of us, and that you use tungsten in such sensitive areas such as defense and in technology, it’s certainly an area that has raised eyebrows. But the full impact we don’t know right now. 

TMO: So, what about Almonty’s role in that supply security then? What would you say Almonty is doing to provide a reliable alternative to China for tungsten? 

Black: Well, we’ve always sort of kept ourselves out of harm’s way. We’ve never aligned ourselves with any particular fund or group so that we had to pick sides. We could naturally, organically drift into areas where we felt comfortable. And our customers have always been traditionally the EU, Japan and the United States, and now about to be Korea as well. And we could sell three times what we actually produce. But I think from our point of view our strategy of servicing those markets has been well-founded given these new geopolitical sort of occurrences. 

TMO: So, let’s flip to the strategic importance of the Sangdong Mine. What makes this mine in South Korea such a critical asset for ensuring a stable tungsten supply for industries in the West? And tell us more about that. 

Black: Well, despite all the kind of proclamations of my peer group, Sangdong’s previous iteration was the world’s largest tungsten mine. It closed in 1993 because of the low-price environment when China crashed the market. And it is a quite exceptional deposit within our sector in terms of our industry, it’s a very well-known entity. Its sheer size can provide a vast amount of tungsten, if so called upon. It’s a horizontal deposit. So it’s a question of multiple portals. It has a grade of close to three times the average that you would find in a tungsten mine globally. And it’s sitting in a democracy. And I think these factors give it total transparency, give it longevity and give you a grade so that you can be very cost competitive in terms of your production cost. And that’s why it’s transformational. 

TMO: I mean, that sounds innovative just on its own. 

Black: Well, it’s one of one of the reasons why groups like KfW IPEX, which is the premier project finance lender in the world actually gave us 75% of the project cost as debt because, and they’ve never financed any tungsten mine previously. So, this is a statement that governments recognize the importance of this project.  

TMO: That’s a huge statement indeed. Absolutely. 

Black: Even if sometimes it feels our stock price is probably not reflective of the size and scale of this project. I think that’s more to do with the fact of market dynamics in that we haven’t aligned ourselves with any one particular Angel PE Fund, you know, we’ve kept our independence and that’s why we’ve been able to survive and thrive in our sector. 

TMO: Can we talk about technological dependence? So which technologies and industries are particularly dependent on tungsten sourced from safe and conflict-free regions? 

Black: Well, people don’t have the choice whether they source it from non-conflict or transparent jurisdictions, because basically you don’t have that option. You have to get your tungsten. If 90% comes from North Korea, China and Russia, then you are pretty much beholden to the fact that your material is not transparent. And in answer to your question, it’s one of those obscure metals that is in absolutely everything in a global economy, every sector, you only use a little bit of it, but without it, that sector can’t function. So, whether it be cars, planes, defense, semiconductors, batteries, solar panels, screens even the vibrator in your phones, guidance systems and satellites. I mean the wind turbines; it’s in every part of a global economy.  

And I think one of the reasons why we’ve not made a big hububaloo, as it were, about availability of supply or from alternate sources is because you don’t know how North Korea, China and Russia will react to a large capital move to replace them. And you don’t have the time it takes. To start a mine in a democracy is eight to 10 years conservatively. You don’t have the luxury of time to make lots of noise whilst the hand that feeds you may also bite you. So, it’s always been a metal that I’ve always described as having tungsten diplomacy. Where there are no questions you know, everyone knows there’s a problem, but what do we do to fix it discreetly? 

TMO: Absolutely. If we take a look at the future of geopolitical strategies then, given the increasing focus on securing critical minerals, how do you see Almonty’s role evolving in the geopolitical landscape of raw material supply? 

Black: Well, we’ve got obviously the world’s biggest tungsten mine, and it’s going to open shortly, it’s going to commission shortly. We have also, as part of that, one of Asia’s largest and highest-grade moly deposits, which has no value on our books currently, but we have a huge amount of inferred data from Korea Tungsten that previously owned it and from the Korean government. So that’s something we’re working on now. And so, these two metals are right up there in the strategic metals list and it’s fully permitted, which is most important. I don’t think we are going to have this role of looking at other critical metals. We know how to mine tungsten and we know how to mine moly. We’ve done it for 136 years. 

So, we are rather good at it at this point. And our mine in Portugal, which is 136 years old, is a low grade, very old, you know, she creeks on at the edges. It struggles to get out of bed sometimes in the morning, but it still produces the highest-grade material in the world with the highest recoveries of any gravity plant in tungsten and still makes money. So, one can only imagine what we’re going to be able to do with a brand-new shiny mine in Korea, which has got a grade of more than four and a half times the level of in Portugal. 

TMO: Wow. I cannot wait to hear what comes down the pipeline going forward. And, you know, this has been such a great conversation. Thank you again for joining me. 

Black: Thanks, Lyndsay. Thanks for having me. 

That was Lewis Black President and CEO of Almonty Industries. If you’d like to learn more about, their website is Almonty.com. You can find them on the TSX under ticker symbol AII.

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The same world where microbes and viruses are becoming ever-resistant to antibiotics and other treatments (and where mystery outbreaks and bird flu have come to the fore).

And where ‘superbugs’ are no longer sci-fi medical concepts but very real problems inside hospitals everywhere, making staph infections look like a breeze in comparison.  

As the human population rises and urban centres grow denser and denser while international and domestic travel routes become more and more efficient, the threat of disease (let alone pandemics) is only going to become more and more relevant to our day-to-day lives.  

Believe me – this finance journalist is just as keen as you are to avoid thinking about the fact we might ever see lockdowns in our lives again.

But, the reality is, the risk is there. Viruses are, after all, more ancient than the human race. And they’ll probably outlive us.

So, we need to be rational enough to talk about it. Or maybe the right word is brave.  

In the world of 2025 and beyond, it’s going to be important to keep a clean nose, if you will.

Enter Firebrick Pharma (ASX:FRE) – a company that’s got a product the world wants and needs, and is attractively priced at only 5cps.

So what does Firebrick sell?  

Headed by respected industry doyen Dr Peter Molloy, Firebrick Pharma’s main product is Nasodine – a PVP-iodine-based germicide designed for nasal spray use.  

For those playing at home – PVP-iodine is the same active ingredient in the antiseptic brand Betadine. Back in the day, Peter Molloy was the creator of Betadine Sore Throat Gargle and most of the Betadine over-the-counter range in Australia.

“That’s what inspired the idea of a nasal spray using the same active ingredient,” he said. 

“I was always fascinated with the idea of using a topical antiseptic-like approach to treating colds by eliminating the viruses in the nasal passages, rather than taking a pill, it’s a lot safer, very effective, based on the clinical studies that we’ve done.” 

And, Firebrick’s Nasodine product is already available in the world’s number one economy: The United States of America.

In short: The application of Nasodine can eliminate bugs – viruses and bacteria – in the nasal cavity of the user and, better still, Dr Molloy says resistance is not going to be an issue.

The foremost benefit for users here is the minimised risk of contraction when taking public transport with sick persons, as well as just navigating through busy crowds presenting the same risk.

Unlike many other pharma players on the ASX, Firebrick isn’t necessarily trying to cure anything – the name of the game is disease prevention and introducing a germ-killing nasal spray into a world that is now more concerned about nasal germs than ever before.   

And, as Peter Molloy pointed out to HotCopper, the company is ‘ready to go’ – and already commercialising – with no forward R&D risk.

That takes a lot of the volatility out of a biotech stock, a sector notorious for rapid turnarounds in sentiment based on clinical trial data or regulatory approvals and rejections. 

“My key message is that Firebrick is on the cusp of commercialising a product that the world needs, that doctors want, that consumers want – Nasodine nasal spray,” Dr Molloy said.  

“It’s a world first… and we’re sitting at five cents a share. There’s tremendous upside potential for Firebrick Pharma in the next 12 months.”

“It’s the first common cold treatment product and common cold preventative product that actually targets the viral cause of colds, instead of just symptoms, which all of the other cough and cold products do,” Dr Molloy said.

“It kills all viruses and bacteria, but it doesn’t kill humans,” he continued. 

“And it kills all pandemic strains, so one of our motivations of putting Nasodine on the market is to make sure it’s available to healthcare professionals and consumers before the next pandemic comes along and who knows what it’ll be – a coronavirus, a bird flu…Povidone iodine – the active ingredient in Nasodine – kills them all, so it’s very important we have the product available.”

“Notably, as I’ve said, the company has already spent $15M to get to where it is and they have built a strong patent fence and produced a wealth of clinical data through six clinical trials that importantly, have shown Nasodine is safe to use.

“All of the R&D risk is essentially behind us. The manufacturing risk is behind us. We’ve solved all those problems. We’ve set up all the logistics, we have partners in place, and we’re now ready to pump the product out and watch the sales grow over the next 12 months,” Dr Molloy told HotCopper. 

Nasodine is manufactured in Australia for the Singapore market – but also in California for the U.S. market, through a U.S. contract manufacturer. 

Dr Molloy’s clear bemusement that the company’s share price only reflects 5cps is understandable.

Especially after the company most recently announced a deal in Singapore that will see Nasodine on the shelves of the country’s largest pharmacy chain starting in January… and Singapore is a sophisticated and substantial pharmaceutical market, so watch this space as sales take off in early 2025.

Dr Molloy says Nasodine – a germicide – kills all viruses and bacteria, including pandemic-potential strains of coronavirus (still very much with us) and every other conceivable pandemic virus, including everything from Ebola to bird flu.

There’s another element to Firebrick Pharma’s overall value proposition when it comes to Nasodine – as per Dr Molloy’s discussion with HotCopper, the use of Nasodine can also help prevent viral shedding from the nose of the user, as demonstrated in a recent clinical trial.

That means Nasodine not only protects the user who applies it but also anybody sitting next to them.

Firebrick’s start to 2025 is going to be part commercialisation phase, part Asia region expansion – after Singapore, its next market to tap is the Philippines (one of the most heavily populated regions on earth.) 

All in all: Dr Molloy sees Firebrick on a surprising growth trajectory in 2025, with the market definitely waking up to its multi-bagger potential.

Disclaimer: Firebrick contributed content for this article.

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Last week, BM8 announced it had raised A$1 million to progress exploration at its Bleiberg zinc-germanium project in Austria, with this coming shortly after the company announced fieldwork at the site to happen later in October, chasing up 6 kilometres worth of drill targets, and guided by more than 100 years of historical data.

The latter gives investors some insight into the value of the Bleiberg asset: comprising 116 claims stretched across 65.8 square kilometres, the landholding includes the historic Bleiberg zinc-lead-germanium mine, which was ranked the world’s sixth largest producer of the latter metal before its closure in 1993.

The whole Bleiberg region is recognised as a historic lead and zinc district, with mining activity starting there in the 14th century. But germanium is also found there in world-beating grades, in addition to gallium recorded at between 90 and 110 grams per tonne.

The maiden fieldwork program at Bleiberg will see BM8 chief executive officer Nigel Broomham join chief geological advisor Dr Simon Dorling to undertake reconnaissance geological traverses to support mapping efforts at the project, as well as collecting surface samples, conducting assessment of scale, and establishing drilling targets.

Mr Broomham – who spent six years in senior geologist and superintendent roles at Pilbara Minerals Ltd (ASX:PLS) leading the team from Exploration through to Production – joined BM8 before its re-listing to the ASX last year, and said the decision had been guided by both its assets and team.

“It’s pretty similar to my investment strategy as well, (BM8) has a capable board, very strong register, and some really exciting projects which I felt had a huge amount of potential,” he said.

“That’s our lead-zinc-germanium project in Bleiberg Austria – where we have the best exposure to the strategic metals of germanium and gallium on the ASX – and also our lithium asset in Ontario Canada, Falcon Lake.

“It became apparent to me that after 6 years at Pilbara Minerals, playing a part in the success story there at Pilgangoora, that I wanted to get out and find the next one, and I saw Battery Age as the perfect opportunity.”

BM8’s Falcon Lake lithium project in Canada has been progressing side-by-side with Bleiberg throughout 2024, pulling up impressive results from a summer exploration program which kicked off in July.

This included intercepts of 28.25 metres at 1.30% Li2O (lithium oxide) and 18.40 metres at 1.88% Li2O – both reported in September based on a seven-hole program of drilling, in with significant mineralisation found in six of these.

With a prospective corridor of 5 kilometres in focus, this drilling was able to expand the mineralised zone – particularly at the Falcon Little Lake target, where a 40 metre thick pegmatite was intersected.

This boosted expectations and built on previous exploration carried out in 2023 at the project – which is located in a strong mining jurisdiction in Ontario.

Mr Broomham said being able to play a role in emerging critical minerals stories here and in Europe was a great position to be in.

“For me, sitting in Western Australia and being part of the lithium industry here for a quite a time, watching the emerging North American supply chain with a lot of excitement, and I really feel that’s the next frontier,” he said.

“With that comes our ventures in Europe as well, where we have strategic metals germanium and gallium as well as zinc – these are all future-facing commodities.

“We feel there’s a real need for these metals outside of the China controlled supply chain, and we believe we’re well placed to capitalize on them as they emerge.”

Nevertheless, he acknowledged that companies in the lithium sector in particular had been doing it tough, given the historically significant weakness in that commodity’s price seen recently, as when it steadied at a three year low of 71,500 Chinese yuan per tonne in September.

Mr Broomham was optimistic that the price had reached its lowest point, and that the cycle would turn around soon.

“It’s been difficult, much like many of our peers, to attract new investment in the sector,” he said.

“But what we’ve seen and what we believe is that we are at the bottom, or close to the bottom, especially when considering lithium and other battery metals globally.

“What we believe that’s done is essentially suppress capital flowing to the next producer, the next developer and the next discovery.”

He added that this suppression would lead to a lack of projects, in turn causing a higher price environment which could be capitalised on when the market turned.

Indeed, given reports in September that the world’s biggest battery producer Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd (CATL) had closed down its lithium mine in China’s Jiangxi province have suggested that the oversupply narrative may be coming to an end.

“Nobody likes to be at the bottom of commodity cycles. However, to me this is 2019 all over again – we’ve seen a huge amount of supply come off line,” Mr Broomham said.

“And essentially the current pricing is below incentive pricing which means that these projects will not be coming on line as originally predicted, therefore supply won’t keep up with forecast, and ultimately that will result in high prices for longer.

“Demand is not going anywhere, despite the murmurings up and down St George’s Terrace.”

Crucial to this would be continuing consumer drive for electric vehicles, he added.

“What we know globally is that EV sales continue to grow in the largest markets in the world,” Mr Broomham said.

“Actually now it’s more affordable to buy an EV in the US than it is on a like for like basis as an internal combustion engine.

“So people are going to be voting with not only their heads but with their wallets now.”

BM8 has been trading at 11 cents.

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Gold prices at record highs.

Two gold projects sitting on greenstone belts in world famous mining regions.

Never-intimidated project developer Red Mountain Mining (ASX:RMX), within the space of a week, has just kicked off two exploration campaigns across its two largest assets – both of them chasing after the safe haven yellow metal.

The company is, for all intents and purposes, under new management.

Recently appointed Managing Director Lincoln Liu has had his eyes on the helm of Red Mountain for a while.

“I have followed Red Mountain Mining for about 3 years and have always believed the Company has great potential as an explorer,” Liu told The Market Online.

“When the opportunity came up, I was enthused about the prospect of working with our team to unlock value from the existing portfolio.”

The first thing HotCopper users and other market-watchers may notice is the volume of shares on issue. But Liu stated the company isn’t too far away from a position where it can consolidate. 

“We do have plans to consolidate, we believe that the time is right to consolidate our shares to improve share trading liquidity, coupled with the upcoming newsflow from our Canadian and Western Australian gold exploration projects,” Liu elaborated.

In a world like ours is today, there’s no shortage of reasons to believe gold prices will continue to be uplifted by ongoing purchases – from the old lady next door, to central banks and investment firms.

But before we dive into Red Mountain’s management and the overhead market trends that sit poised to benefit the company – and potentially create some serious shareholder value – let’s look at the underlying geology that makes this company’s recently acquired gold projects interesting.

I know, I know – we’re going to be talking about rocks, and not the more exciting gold price. 

But there’s a method to the madness here. So why do greenstone belts matter?

For the uninitiated: greenstone belts are well renowned by miners and veteran explorer watchers, given their typical geological formation across time is a friendly space for the slow-burning accumulation of mineral systems (read: “deposits.”)

All greenstone belts on earth come from the Archean era, a time before tectonic plates had formed on earth – meaning they’re ancient, which without the jargon, ultimately means there’s been more time for those structures to have slowly accumulated diverse mineral deposits crucial for our society.

In other words: a greenstone belt is the kind of thing that gets explorers excited.

Gold was first discovered in South Africa in the Barberton greenstone belt; but you may be surprised to learn that one of the most well-know gold mining regions in the world is also riddled with greenstone belt geology – WA’s Pilbara Craton.

The first is in Ontario, Canada, called Fry Lake.

The project acreage lies within the Meen-Dempster Greenstone Belt; Geology Ontario has previously looked around Fry Lake specifically and reported a litany of volcanic and sedimentary rocks – noting that the western end of the area has excellent bedrock exposure. 

Not only that, but Red Mountain’s acreage at Fry Lake – it’s currently exploring a smaller target area of interest called Flicka Lake – is also nearby the Fry-McVean massive shear. 

(A shear, or ‘shear zone,’ is similar to greenstone belts in that they tend to offer the right conditions for minerals to accumulate over time, leading to mineral deposits.)

“These shears and associated faults appear to be the mineralisation conduits for the area, controlling the alteration and gold distribution,” Liu told The Market Online.

“Finding and understanding where these structures lie is key to unlocking the mineral potential of the area. We also have ground magnetic and EM data which is assisting us in targeting the key areas.”

At least one group of prospectors in Ontario have found pockets of gold, iron, and molybdenum close together in mineral systems located within the shear. 

Similarly, Geology Ontario has also detected trace elements of gold in the Fry-McVean shear in still fairly limited academic-style assessments.

Red Mountain’s second gold project is the Kiabye Gold Project in Western Australia’s Murchison region. 

Like Fry Lake, Kiabye is located right on a greenstone belt asset. In fact, it’s named after one – the Kiabye greenstone belt. 

This geological asset is a bit more obscure than the Meen-Dempster Greenstone Belt underlying Fry Lake of which there has been far more study done. But a 2017 document stored by the WA Department of Energy, Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety (DEMIRS) does contain some information.

The Kiabye greenstone belt is a small area within the larger Yilgarn Craton, which has contributed the underlying geology to a number of successful gold mines. 

You may hear about the Yilgarn a lot – one thing to note is its size, which is important for context. It underpins most of southwest WA; the entire thing is Archean in age – showing that its ancient history has allowed it to accumulate mineral deposits all across the southwest. 

Red Mountain’s flagship Fry Lake project, given its size, needs to be taken step-by-step: which is why the company has targeted one area of interest called Flicka Lake.

Located right near the Fry-McVean massive shear as described, the company’s geotechs are confident they can pull data eventually leading to near-term drill targets from this sampling run.

A number of high priority zones within the Flicka envelope have been selected for sampling with assays due back in October. 

Rock chips and soil samples are the name of the game – the company is dependent on terrain with regards to the number of samples collected.

A local Canadian laboratory has been selected for assaying, ensuring timely returns.

Eager to double their chances at finding a commercial-scale gold system, Red Mountain’s simultaneously got boots on the ground a world away in Kiabye preparing for the first drill run.

The company is collecting rock chips and soil samples across the considerable acreage with a view towards shoring up confidence in data surrounding old historical gold sites.

“We are really pleased to be mobilising [in late September] to commence sampling, targeting the anomalous gold bearing rocks at Kiabye South,” Red Mountain chief Lincoln Liu told The Market Online.

“The Kiabye Project, South east of Mt Magnet, covers a strike length of 23km2 of the greenstone belt with less than half covered by exploration samples from historical explorers. We believe this project is highly prospective for gold.” 

The company is also collecting further evidence it will use in these early days to dismiss or retain interest in a number of existing electromagnetic geophysical targets at the project known to the company’s geotechs.

Sampling campaigns can be a bit boring compared to drill results, but the size of Red Mountain’s campaign shouldn’t be ignored – it’s collecting no less than 658 soil samples.

That the company will come up with a drill target is pretty much guaranteed; the company expects assay results by early October.

Helmed by new manager Lincoln Liu, Red Mountain is a company starting fresh.

Sure, it’s got its challenges ahead of it – a competitive gold exploration sector; a local bourse that is still to draw back retail traders shaken out of the tree over the last few years; and an eventual need to consolidate shares given the number on issue.

Liu’s long-term goal for Red Mountain is with a view towards a merger and (or) acquisition, as opposed to creating a gold mine outright.

Red Mountain chief Liu recently invested his own cash into the latest placement after having his eye on the company for no less than 3 years. Liu’s background is in finance, but given the areas they’re working in, the company is well placed to tap local knowledge. Both Canada and Australia are gold mining hotspots, after all.

Liu has his eye on the return of the broader market to risk assets, given that he believes money isn’t flowing down to smallcap gold miners yet.

At the end of the day: Red Mountain is gearing up to kick off drilling in two gold mining hotspots to deliver shareholder value ahead of an eventual buyout once either project is shored up.

And don’t forget the gold price. 

Disclaimer: The Market Online has a commercial relationship with Red Mountain.

Keely:

We are here for an update on how AI is being adopted into weighing technologies used by retail businesses. What that means is that supermarkets, for example, can automatically track consumer purchases and the experience for their customers become smoother and easier.

ASX listed company, Shekel Brainweigh, is employing these exact methods to discuss this further. I’m joined by the company CEO, Nir Leshem. Welcome Nir. Tell us how is AI revolutionizing the retail sales industry?

Nir:

Retailers are under pressure due to declining margins, which are currently averaging just 1.7% according to the recent data from Shoptalk Europe. So the first meeting points where AI is helping address these challenges through automating of key processes.

The traditional self-checkout, which we’ve learned to know and work with for the last decades or so, is growing dramatically but evolving towards more advanced technologies like smart trays, smart trollies, and small format frictionless stores. This innovations is really aimed to streamline the customer’s experience, reduce the labor dependency and increase efficiencies for everyone.

Keely:

And Nir expanding on that. How does Shekel Brainweigh fit into all of this?

Nir:

Shekel has evolved to offer not just weight measurements as we have been doing for the last several decades, but also a comprehensive weight-based product recognition solutions. These technologies by Shekel is actually productized the weight-based product recognition models for all checkout methods.

And let me demonstrate you that through our five product lines, our five retail tech product lines. So the traditional self checkout is where we provide advanced security skills that ensure accurate products way, but also prevent the crowd. The smart cooler is where our smart coolers offers an end-to-end solution actually an end-to-end product that extends walking hours.

The after time enable the after time and eliminates the needs for labor. Smart Trays for vision checkout is what we start seeing more and more in the C- level store is where our ultra slim weighing platform actually triggers the computer vision and enabling the legal complete trade of fresh food. Smart Cart is what we offer retrofitted weighing kits for Smart Carts.

Recently by the way, approved by NTEP, the US Legal for Trade Institute and also includes software security layers. The small format friction stores is where our weight-based smart trays power computer vision technology providing full product recognition effects in milliseconds.

So this ensures retailers can adopt the technology that best meets their needs, positioning us, Shekel, as a key player in the retail industry, transformation, regardless of which checkout method, the market would choose to adopt. 

Keely:

And Nir, how is Shekel planning to leverage this opportunity to build profitability?

Nir:

Well, our success really aligned in dependence with market adoptions obviously and the scalability of those new checkout solutions. We’re collectively forging strategic partnerships with global leaders. We’re regulating our weighing solutions in key markets and we optimize our products and preparations of the inevitable scale up.

Furthermore, our strategy goes beyond recognition technology by capitalizing on the immense potentials of shelf data monetization. Currently our team is pioneering a breakthrough technology aimed to unlock the store digital twin concept using retrofit weighing base.

These innovations open up for us for possibilities to provide real time shelf data visibility across the entire ecosystem, not only for the retailers, but also for the consumer packaged goods. So by executing this initiative, we aim not only to optimize operational efficiencies, but also to establish new revenue stream through data driven insight and collaboration ventures within the retail industry.

Keely:

And lastly, given shekel is sitting at five and a half cents on market today, that’s quite low, when you look at the company’s trading history, tell us what’s next for the company.

Nir:

We see significant profitable growth opportunities for retailer product line. We’re confident that we’ll hit the ground running as retailers and more and more shoppers continue to move towards automation of set checkout solution. In just the first half of this year, our retail tech product line has shown impressive growth and the opportunities pipeline is filling up quickly with the cutting edge technology, which I described.

We’re driving this global shift towards automation and an experience management team staying the way that we have in place here in Shekel. We are confident that we are poised to capture a substantial sharing in the market, which is worth over 10 billion dollars. 

Keely:

Shekel Brainweigh trades on the ASX under the ticker code SBW. Nir. Thank you so much for your time today. We look forward to hearing about the company’s next update.

Nir:

Thank you very much.

The Department of Mines has formally progressed the first stage of the company’s exploitation concession application for the project.

That progression to stage two, according to Infinity Lithium, marks the government’s recognition of the project as legitimate.

The company is now moving ahead to acquire supplementary licences.

“We are pleased to receive this positive confirmation of the lithium resource and subsequent notification from the Mines Department allowing us to progress the permitting of San José,” Extremadura New Energies CEO Ramon Jimenez said.

“The Project will now go through the ordinary procedure of assessment by the technicians of the Junta de Extremadura.”

The company recently secured an 11ha area on-site for where a downstream lithium processing plant is slated to be built.

That lease is for no less than 35 years.

INF last traded at

That enhancement came from studies looking at a combination of bisantrene and decitabine – both chemotherapeutic drugs, used together, are more effective at killing cancerous cells across “a broad panel of 143 tumour cell lines.”

Notably, it’s the combination of these drugs that’s proven to be more effective than either compound taken on its own. The cell lines tested came from over 20 different human tissue specimens.

Of the 143 different cell lines, the aforementioned combination showed “enhanced” cancer cell-killing properties in 131 out of 143 samples – 92%.

Meanwhile, 56% of cell lines “[showed] les than two-fold increases in activity for the combination, relative to bisantrene alone, and 36% showed up to 2-fold-improvements.”

A cohort of cell lines reflecting 8% of the overall set tested showed no improvement for the combination.

The in-house research on tissue samples to date, Race said, is applicable to solid tumours including cancers of the lung, prostate, pancreas, breast, head, and neck.

Management noted on Tuesday that decitabine is a well known chemo drug typically used in blood cancers, in combination with bisantrene, the haematological drug could be more widely used in the treatment of solid tumours as well as blood cancer.

“While decitabine has proven its effectiveness in haematological cancers, it has not demonstrated clinical utility in solid tumours, like lung or breast cancer,” Race chief Dr. Daniel Tillett said.

“This new body of work is highly supportive of the results from the University of Newcastle in preclinical AML models using a combination of bisantrene and decitabine.”

RAC closed at $1.55 on Monday.

Since listing on the Australian stock exchange (ASX) in October, Chariot’s focus has been on building up a significant suite of lithium projects across three US states with the goal of securing future supply of the mineral to fulfil a voracious appetite from the country’s battery manufacturers.

Chariot’s tenement holdings are massive.  Its flagship Black Mountain project in central Wyoming comprising 2,686 hectares alone following an expansion in March 2024 which saw a 206 percent increase in tenement area (with 218 contiguous claims added).

Here, the mineralization of interest is hard rock lithium – also known as spodumene – which is found in granite pegmatites. Black Mountain contains a ‘swarm’ of these pegmatites across its licence territory and Chariot has defined them as being rich in the type of spodumene containing lithium, caesium and tantalum (LCT).

In February, Chariot reported the results of its maiden drilling program at Black Mountain, which had comprised eight holes, three of which intersected high-grade spodumene close to the surface, thus confirming the potential of Black Mountain LCT pegmatite swarms.

Additionally, the first drill hole intersected pyrite-pyrrhotite mineralization which could potentially be the peripheral portion of a significant body of potential base metal ore.

Reflecting on these results, CEO Shanthar Pathmanathan said the project – which is Wyoming’s first hard rock lithium discovery – was providing every indication of being a strong and economically viable one.

“This maiden drilling program has delineated a strongly mineralized lithium bearing pegmatite dike swarm with all three of the first three holes intersecting lithium at varying depths starting from 1.83 meters below surface and as low as 45.26 meters below surface,” he said.

“Drill hole 1 intersected 15.48 metres at 1.12 percent lithium oxide from 2.74 metres, including 4.27 metres at 2.46 percent lithium oxide.  Drill hole 2 intersected 14.33m at 0.84% lithium oxide from 1.83m and drill hole 2 intersected 18.81m at 0.85% Li2O from 45.26m”

“The initial drilling results indicate the lithium mineralization, if confirmed at scale through additional exploration, is well-suited for providing domestically sourced lithium supply to the United States’ emerging lithium-ion battery manufacturing industry.”

He added that Black Mountain’s production viability is boosted by its location and economically appealing infrastructure.

“The project is located in a tier 1 mining jurisdiction, serviced by well-maintained road, rail, water and power infrastructure,” Mr Pathmanathan said.

“Natural gas pipelines in the vicinity, along with the close proximity to battery plants and gigafactories, can be leveraged to further benefit the economics of the project.”

Chariot has announced that a second phase of work, focusing on drilling between 5,000 and 10,000 metres, is expected to commence in the third quarter of 2024.

So, what was the catalystthat initially enticed the company to seek lithium in this state?

“Chariot was initially attracted to Black Mountain in Wyoming by a historic report in 1997 by Mark Ivan Jacobson of 60-centimetre long spodumene crystals,” Mr Pathmanathan said.

“We were also attracted by proximity of the Wyoming pegmatite field to the known lithium pegmatite field of the Black Hills of South Dakota. 

“The company was fortunate enough to be the first company to undertake an aggressive staking program in Wyoming, resulting in the company now holding what we consider to be the most strategic land package for Lithium Pegmatites in Wyoming.”

Underpinning Chariot’s hopes for Black Mountain – and its six other project areas within the state – is its knowledge of the Wyoming Archean – Proterozoic shield, which yields LCT-type pegmatites in Wyoming and in other parts of the western United States.

The six additional project areas contain more than 700 LCT-type pegmatites, and Mr Pathmanathan said he expected these areas to produce the same exploration success as realized to date at Black Mountain.

Indeed, the price of lithium did crash below 100 thousand Chinese yen in December 2023 – from a high of 5 thousand yen in November the previous year and is still limping along at 109 thousand yen now.

This is chiefly driven by an oversupply to the market which several economic experts believe will continue for the next few years. Bloomberg NEF analyst Allen Ray Restauro has said for example, that supply would continue to outweigh demand, meaning that short-term rallies in the lithium price would not last.

By contrast, UBS Group Ag and Goldman Sachs in March reduced their 2024 estimates for lithium supply by 33 and 26 percent respectively. Nevertheless, Goldman Sachs warned that the lithium market was still in bear mode with supply so strongly in surplus.

Mr Pathmanathan said his projections were for a short-term oversupply of lithium – and subsequent low prices – followed by a trend of long-term demand, particularly from the focal point of Chariot’s exploration in the USA.

“We foresee a heavily under-supplied market in the long-term, particularly in the local United States market, as it seeks to decouple from the Chinese lithium supply to feed its rapidly growing United States lithium-ion battery manufacturing industry,” he said.

“At an SC6 (Chinese spodumene lithium) price of US$1,000 per tonne, it is estimated that almost 50 percent of potential new spodumene capacity are likely to be ‘shelved’ as it would be uneconomic to produce from these projects at the current price levels,” he said.

“With demand continuing to grow at double digit percentages annually, ultimately higher pricing paradigm will prevail.”

He added emphasized that Chariot had deliberately targeted projects with large-scale potential and high grade mineralization close to the surface, mindful offuture demand for lithium and other critical minerals in the United States, government’s subsequent support for this, notably  the Inflation Reduction Act – which includes an emphasis on domestic and clean energy production and the Defense Production Act – which was amended in February 2023 stimulate greater funding for critical minerals projects.

Looking ahead, Mr Pathmanathan  sees a focus on further exploration for Chariot, to define mineralization already observed and to see what else was to be found at Black Mountain.

“Chariot is reviewing the data from the Phase 1 drill program at Black Mountain to plan for the second round of drilling in the third quarter of 2024, with the objectives of testing the depth extent of already defined pegmatite mineralization as well as drilling out the interpreted extensions to the dike swarm,” he said.

“Prior to commencing drilling the company plans to extend the limits of the existing geochemical survey further east and remodel the ground magnetics to better define several magnetic low zones which the geologists have interpreted as potential larger pegmatite bodies at a depth of 50 to 200m below surface.

“The company is evaluating a two-pronged approach to drilling which includes a targeted drilling program that is permitted under the current disturbance limit and a more comprehensive drilling program upon approval of an EPO (exclusive prospecting order).”

Firstly, Recce is stepping up its trial activities in Australia’s nearest Asian neighbour, Indonesia.

Recce’s flagship anti-infective, R327, can be applied as a gel – and this gel-based version of the drug has been of specific interest to Recce in recent months with a view towards infected foot wounds tied to diabetes.

A Phase I/II clinical trial looking at the use of R327 gel to treat diabetic foot infections (DFIs) is moving towards a Phase III “registrational trial” in Indonesia, set to take place in Q3CY24.

Secondly, the company has won a nod of the hat from none other than the US Department of Defence.

The DoD also has its eyes on the R327 gel product with a view towards its application on infected burn wounds incurred by soldiers.

The DoD has recommended the company receive some A$3.3M in funding for further development and investigation.

This underpins Recce’s growing international awareness and brand presence at keystone conferences around the world, the company reported on Monday. Both the WA and NSW state governments have sponsored Recce for the BIO International Convention 2024.

The company is building up an application for fast-track status within the US FDA approvals ecosystem for R327 and anticipates a US-based trial to commence in H1CY2025 with the submission set to be lodged in H2CY2024.

In another recent test, R327 has also been shown to be effective at killing drug-resistant strains of E. Coli.

RCE shares were up 2.2% to 46cps in afternoon trades.

The QLPH comprises both a multi-purpose independent concentrator capable of handling one million tonnes per year and an independent battery-grade lithium carbonate refinery managing up to 16,000 tonnes per year.

Development of the hub has involved use of technology first utilised at Lithium Universe’s Jiangsu Lithium Carbonate facility in Western Australia, and last month the company announced that it was testing this through metallurgical work on various global sources of spodumene at the Canadian facility.

Canada is set to become one of the world’s top suppliers of battery materials, with BloombergNEF naming it the top country in its Global Lithium-Ion Battery Supply Chain Ranking. Lithium Universe highlighted developments at QLPH as being crucial to meet this demand, as well as through the ideas and achievements of the company’s ‘Lithium Dream Team’, whose work involved honing both hard rock lithium extraction and downstream conversion operations.

Strategic partnerships were also an important part of the Lithium Universe story, particularly with engineering consultant Hatch Ltd and Primero Group, with the former being responsible for building WA’s Jiangsu facility.

Lithium Universe Chairman, Iggy Tan said the company remain focused on solidifying its status within North America’s supply chain, despite headwinds which saw the metal’s price plunge last year.

“Despite prevailing lithium market dynamics, Lithium Universe remains committed to building through the lithium market cycle, solidifying its pivotal role within the growinglithium supply chain in North America,” he said.

“Leveraging strong tailwinds from the geopolitical shift towards onshoring battery production, the emergence of James Bay as a key lithium jurisdiction, and our strategic approach to addressing the lithium conversion capacity gap, we stand in a favourable position.”

Lithium Universe is trading at 2c.