Bridging Exploration And Community With Miles Rideout, VP Of Exploration At Argentina Lithium & Energy Corp
The global demand for a cleaner, greener future is a goal which Argentina Lithium & Energy Corp. (TSX-V: LIT , OTC:PNXLF, FSE:OAY2) believes it can support through exploration for alternative fuel materials. Lithium batteries have become the front-running rechargeable energy storage medium, particularly for the rapidly growing electric vehicle industry, creating a strong demand forecast for lithium.
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00:00 Miles Rideout, who is a vice president of exploration from Argentina, Lithium and Energy Corp.
00:06 The ticker on the OTCQX is LILIF. Let's go ahead and welcome Miles.
00:11 Good morning. Hello, Zuned. Thank you for the invitation.
00:16 Absolutely. Look, I told you this on our prep call, but I have to tell you this in front of
00:20 everybody. I absolutely love your last name. I think it's really cool. I'm jealous. I might
00:24 have to change it after we get done here. But I really do appreciate you joining me.
00:28 There's so much that's been happening in Argentina, not just the past couple of years with the World
00:33 Cup, but also with the elections. And I promise we'll get to that. But before we do, just give
00:37 me like a brief overview of what is it that your company does. We are an exploration company.
00:42 We're on where we're based in Vancouver. We're on the also on the Toronto Venture Exchange,
00:50 and we're focused on exploring and then developing lithium brine deposits in northwest
00:56 Argentina. It's a positive investment district and very pro mining. Both provinces where we're
01:04 active have active mines and active lithium projects. Now, we tease about the Argentina
01:10 side of things. So taking everything that you just said, let's talk about the newly elected
01:15 officials down there. We've seen how hyped the market was and how they responded to the elections
01:21 that are happening. I mean, I've even seen on the timeline of Twitter or X about how the president
01:26 likes to fly commercial and not private. But all that aside, though, the newly elected officials,
01:31 how is that going to impact your sector? And more importantly, are there any catalysts that
01:36 you can see coming on behalf of that? President Javier Mele, who's the key person in this
01:44 discussion, he's a libertarian and an economist. And I think he has a very good grasp of the issues
01:50 in Argentina. The direction of his reforms are to decrease government spending and to increase
01:59 private sector employment. And the key hurdles here would be getting a handle on the current
02:06 inflation that is ongoing in Argentina and to increase the amenability of commerce and particularly
02:15 international commerce in Argentina. Historically, Argentina has been a very inward looking
02:20 country and typically with significant restraints on international commerce.
02:27 So there will be a transition period. It's difficult to say what that might be, six months,
02:33 a year, something like that. And then we should see the foreign investment pick up. And I think
02:39 as well, the Argentine populace will be reinvesting in their country also. That'll be exciting
02:45 to see. What I don't anticipate is significant changes to the mining regulations. Mining is
02:54 regulated through the provinces. And where we're active, the provinces are already pro-mining.
03:01 What they see is on any producing project, they see a 3% net smelter royalty. And they see the
03:11 reinvestment in the communities of Argentina's high plain region, both really important factors
03:18 for the provinces. So I think that we as miners will get support from all levels, from the federal
03:24 level and from the provincial level looking forward. There's two things that I want to
03:30 kind of quickly touch on. Inflation. I've got a business partner in Argentina. We set aside 15
03:35 minutes every week so you can complain to me about the inflation. So you're definitely spot
03:40 on on that point as well. And it's always good to have the federal government support. We saw
03:45 EVs here in the States take off because of the tax breaks that a lot of people got when they
03:49 purchased it. So it's good to hear that the federal government will be in favor of helping
03:53 in terms of your sector. Inflation aside, let's talk about something else that's increasing.
03:57 And that's also the demand for lithium in the battery sector. So what's the company's
04:01 long-term strategy for making sure that you're sustainable and you also have a competitive
04:07 supply in terms of lithium for the demand? Sure. There's actually two factors which we have in
04:13 mind when we look at the lithium brine market. One is the expanding lithium demand. And I think
04:19 all lithium investors are well aware of that. The other is the revolutionary extraction technologies
04:25 which are becoming more prevalent. And over the next few years will be the, I think, the
04:32 predominant extraction processes. So I'm talking about direct lithium extraction processing.
04:39 If you look at the trend in our industry, because of the market demand, exploration companies have
04:50 tended to focus on larger basins and also basins which might have lower grades. And I think that
04:58 as these direct lithium extraction technologies become more prevalent, we'll see that trend
05:06 accelerate. What that means then is we currently have two active projects where our exploration
05:14 is currently focused. These would be mid-grade projects, each located adjacent to a major
05:19 producer. And for down the road, we've claimed two very large basin-scale projects in areas which
05:30 we're all drilling produces lithium brines, but typically lower-grade brines. So our view would
05:37 be as we get the two main projects moving towards production, these later stage projects would
05:46 become the focus of our exploration. And what we would hope to achieve there would be to define
05:50 large tonnage, lower-grade resources suitable for direct lithium extraction. And that way,
05:57 I think we can be expanding through the next three years and then become hopefully a major player in
06:06 the lithium space through the latter part of this decade. So we've heard the game plan for the next
06:11 two years for you to be a leader in that space. But let's talk about maybe the fact about how
06:17 Argentina Lithium and Energy Corp is going to prioritize environmental sustainability, especially
06:22 with the community engagement in your exploration and development activities, because that's
06:27 definitely a concern for a lot of people. Exactly. So all of our activities, we're looking at how we
06:35 interact with the local communities. And to do that, then we're doing control visits with the
06:41 local communities to our projects. We update the community leaders on our planning, and we consult
06:47 them on our planning. And so everything we do is in relation to the communities. We're also hiring
06:55 staff out of the community. So technical, logistical, and support staff, including nurses,
07:00 are now being hired from these local communities. On the environmental side, again, we review the
07:08 environmental impact of all of our activity, and we're trying to minimize and preferentially
07:14 eliminate environmental impact. And that's at exploration stage. As we move forward to production,
07:21 we will be reviewing our energy requirements and our transport requirements with a view to
07:28 lessening the load, removing as much transport and energy requirement from the project as possible.
07:35 And then finally, in terms of water, it's a critical area for our industry. And
07:42 what we expect or what we aim for is once one of our projects goes into production,
07:49 we would expect to see about 90% recycling of process water. And so we'll be minimizing
07:59 our water utilization. I didn't expect to hear the water part of it. This is why I'm always
08:05 fascinated to have these conversations, because there's so many different things that go into
08:09 making sure that we're not just profitable, but also that you do your ethical duties in terms of
08:14 the environment as well. So I'm glad you brought up that last piece there. A couple more questions.
08:18 One of them is going to be, we talked a little bit about the future, but I love to work in goals and
08:23 milestones. So in that sense, what milestones or upcoming developments can investors and potential
08:29 investors that are watching at home right now expect from Argentina Lithium and Energy Corp
08:34 in the near future? Let's talk 2024, 2025 and beyond. Right. Our current focus is our Rincon
08:43 West project. That is about 5,000 hectares of basin located adjacent to Rio Tinto mining's
08:52 resource in the Rincon Salar. We have 12 exploration holes completed. The drilling's
08:58 ongoing. Our maiden resource should be ready for publication, I would expect late summer in North
09:06 America. So likely that means September of this year. And then, well, work's going to be ongoing
09:13 at Rincon West. We have newer properties that we've added. So we'll be drilling on Rincon West,
09:21 even after that resource announcement, drilling right through the second half of this year and
09:26 into next year. And we'll be making resource updates as that exploration work continues.
09:32 Our second core project is the Antafaya North property. We don't have any drilling there yet.
09:38 We're in permitting. Antafaya North is a 10,000 hectare property located adjacent to Albemarle
09:44 Corporation. Albemarle has a very large resource. And of course, they're the world's second largest
09:50 lithium producer. I expect that we'll have our drill permit by about the midpoint of this year.
09:58 So as we begin drilling on our Antafaya North project, if we can produce similar grades to what
10:05 Albemarle have produced on their property, well, that will be very exciting for our investors.
10:11 That would signify that we could produce a very large resource at Antafaya North.
10:17 Well, I look forward to having the conversation mid-year, whenever you do get that drilling permit,
10:21 and so we can kind of catch up and see what's ahead as well. I'll turn the floor over to you.
10:25 We've talked about the government. We've talked about inflation. We've talked about the future.
10:29 But were there any other topics or final thoughts that you have before we let you go?
10:32 I just would like to provide some perspective for investors. If you're looking at the lithium space,
10:39 lithium is a growing industry. It's growing from essentially a very small business,
10:47 say 15 years ago, exponentially into an energy adjacent business. And so I think that-- I mean,
10:54 I've always worked in mining, and I'm used to looking at copper and gold and things like that.
10:59 But I think that we can expect lithium to have the swell of this exponential growth.
11:07 And I think we also see that the major auto manufacturers will be consolidating their supply
11:14 chains for-- supply lines for lithium. And so I think that we'll see a lot of investment from
11:20 the automotive sector in our business over the next five years. And I know we've got Jay Rice
11:25 asking the question, is he liking your president? We actually-- that's the first question I asked
11:28 you. I see you and I are on the same page. And we're a fan of what the president is going to do
11:33 for the lithium sector, it seems. And thank you so much, Myles. I really appreciate you hanging
11:37 out with me here today. Thank you very much.