American Lithium Minerals, Inc., www.AmericanLithium.com – the mineral exploration firm developing lithium and boron reserves in Nevada with the intention of becoming a world-class supplier of lithium to the burgeoning lithium-ion (Li-Ion) battery market, announced today that Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC) has entered the Company’s Borate Hills Project as a Joint venture Partner, agreeing to invest $4M.
Lithium is an essential strategic reserve for developing the US energy sector, and has seen dramatic increase in usage with the advent of more sophisticated Li-Ion technology and the subsequent incorporation of such batteries into just about every portable electronic device on the market today.
More importantly, the future of lithium for hybrid-electric and electric vehicles (specifically lithium carbonate) is huge, and AMLM stands poised to capitalize on a future in which exploding demand will necessitate expanding supply.
Nevada is an ideal geographic location, or hub, for the nation’s lithium infrastructure – a market which possesses the potential to penetrate anywhere a device needs power and mobility, and therefore has an astonishingly high growth ceiling. Nevada already has a developed fabric of support for mining operations, including power capabilities for extraction and a minerals transportation infrastructure which includes both rail and roads.
AMLM is also actively pursuing exploration in the Great Basin area of the US, a section of the American Southwest that encompasses the contiguous states of Nevada, Utah, Idaho and Oregon and has a quite amazing potential for lithium brine deposits.
The Company’s Borate Hills Project is characterized by very large, relatively high-grade deposits of 2750 ppm lithium and 10k ppm boron (0.275% and 1%) in a claystone and volcanic tuff strata located just 20 miles west of North America’s only producing lithium mine in Clayton Valley, Nevada.
The JOGMEC investment will push the project through pre-feasibility and represents a shrewd move by this agency, which is essentially the result of a fusion of Japan National Oil Corporation and Metal Mining Agency in order to pursue Japan’s logistical requirements for oil, natural gas, nonferrous metal and mineral resources.
Looking at the market for lithium in terms of a $4B-a-year global market for batteries in 90% of laptops and 60% of cell phones, and a projected fivefold uptake by automotive sector interests as early as 2012, leaves one with the inescapable conclusion that AMLM may be a powerful investment vehicle for future returns.
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