Albemarle Corporation has signed for a C$109 million (A$123 million) stake in Canadian lithium explorer Patriot Battery Metals following a significant discovery.
Albemarle will subscribe for over seven million common shares in Patriot at a price of C$15.29 per share, representing a seven per cent premium to the closing price on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
The deal will see Albemarle, already the world’s largest producer of lithium, become Patriot’s biggest shareholders with a 6.4 per cent stake.
It comes just a day after Patriot announced that it was sitting on the largest lithium pegmatite mineral resource in the Americas at the CV5 pegmatite cluster at its Corvette property.
On Monday, the company advised the market that CV5 boasts a maiden mineral resource of 109.2 million tonne at 1.42 per cent lithium oxide.
“This first resource has firmly established CV5 as a Tier 1 spodumene pegmatite asset, already ranking as the largest lithium pegmatite resource in the Americas, as well as in the top 10 resources globally,” Patriot vice president of exploration Darren Smith said.
“There are multiple known spodumene pegmatite clusters yet to be drill tested at the Property and more than 20km of prospective trend yet to be explored.”
Albemarle wasted no time in swooping in. The $123 million capital raise will help accelerate development of the Corvette lithium property.
Patriot chief executive officer Blair Way said the company could not be more pleased to welcome Albemarle as an investor.
“I believe both Patriot and Albemarle can be a big part of building out the required front-end to the lithium chemicals supply chain in North America and Europe over the coming years.
“The additional funding will allow us to more aggressively advance the Corvette property through drilling, permitting, study work and more.”