Ontario’s race to extract lithium is heating up, and one company says it could open the province’s first mine in two years.
Rock Tech Lithium is aiming to bring its Georgia Lake project in northwestern Ontario into production while three other major companies compete to develop the province’s largely untapped lithium resources in the region.
“I believe it is the ideal time for it,” the company’s CEO, Mirco Wojnarowicz told BNN Bloomberg.
Wojnarowicz says the world is now in a “battery age” where lithium batteries are no longer used for electric vehicles, but are also used for energy storage systems to support grids and data centers.
He says his company is helping Canada establish lithium production and processing capacities to reduce its reliance on China for the critical mineral. And Canada already has the raw materials, while also being the seventh largest producer of lithium in the world.
“What Canada also offers, in particular Ontario, is very competitive energy prices,” says Wojnarowicz.
“If you want to process lithium, you require natural gas. You also require electricity, and Ontario is offering very good conditions for that.”
Rock Tech’s advantage
Wojnarowicz says Rock Tech has a particular advantage because much of the infrastructure it needs for its new mine already exists. The company’s flagship Georgia Lake project near Beardmore, Ont., sits next to the Trans-Canada Highway and has access to high-voltage electricity lines.
“That, of course, saves a lot of time because we don’t have to build roads, we don’t have to build bridges, we don’t have to build rail tracks in order to get all material to our customers to the place where you want to process it,” says Wojnarowicz.
He says a preliminary feasibility study showed over 14 million tonnes of lithium oxide after drilling 10 per cent of the property. The company plans to begin its definitive feasibility study later this month, completing it early next year.
Wojnarowicz says the company could begin construction nine months after that, targeting initial production roughly two years from now.
“Given that timeline, we expect that we can be first to production in Ontario,” says Wojnarowicz .
He says much of the lithium could ultimately remain in Canada or be sold to allied economies.
A race to get lithium out of the ground
At least four lithium projects are advancing in northwestern Ontario, which include Frontier Lithium, Green Technology Metals, Rock Tech Lithium, and Avalon Advanced Materials, says Priya Tandon, the president of the Ontario Mining Association.
“ I think Rock Tech’s in a great spot.,” says Tandon.
“It’s just really positive to see that healthy competition.”
Rock Tech’s closest competitor is Frontier Lithium, which is developing its PAK project in Thunder Bay. The company secured letters of intent for $240 million in government grants, also becoming the first mine designated under the province’s One project, One Process framework, designed to speed mine development.
While Rock Tech is not part of any fast tracking, Wojnarowicz says the company has already advanced its permitting work and relationships with Indigenous communities, which is speeding up the process.
Mining it and processing it in Ontario
Getting lithium out of the ground, however, is only part of Rock Tech’s plan.
The company wants to build an integrated Ontario supply chain where lithium is both mined and converted into battery-grade chemicals in the province.
It already got a $200-million anchor investment from BMI Group, which is advancing the planned Red Rock, Ont., converter to process Georgia Lake spodumene concentrate into battery-grade lithium chemicals.
To do this, Rock Tech is applying the plant design from its German lithium converter project to Ontario. That facility transforms raw lithium into battery-grade lithium hydroxide for major automotive partners like Mercedes-Benz.
Rock Tech agreed to sell the planned production capacity of its Georgia Lake mine to Swiss trader Transamine for a seven-year term, with an extension option.
The deal also includes access to a development prepayment facility of up to US$80 million.
“That is a very important milestone because it gives us kind of the commercial foundation for building our mining project,” says Wojnarowicz.
Tandon says all four major projects advancing in the northwest also have plans to move beyond simply mining the resource and into processing.
“For me, processing is such a value-add in the province, for the province, for the country,” she says, referencing the Vale Base Metals and Glencore Canada facilities in the Sudbury Basin, which help bring $3.3 billion in direct annual GDP for Ontario.
Building a mine is still the hard part
Getting any of Ontario’s lithium projects into production remains a significant challenge, says Tandon.
“We talk about it sometimes taking up to 15 years to build a mine in Ontario,” she says, adding that the association is pushing for faster and more predictable permitting as the province tries to find ways to invest in critical mineral production.
There is also a looming labour challenge, Tandon said, as more proposed mines compete for skilled workers.
“If we’re going to be building more mines and expanding existing mines, we want to ensure we’ve got the talent in place,” says Tandon.
