Yeah I didn't mean to sound like I was criticizing the pick, just pointing out how early stage it was. I'll post a more detailed summary of my researches later about this company, EnergyX, that Salton Sea lithium mining company, Talon, and Nouveux Monde graphite.
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Yeah I didn't mean to sound like I was criticizing the pick, just pointing out how early stage it was. I'll post a more detailed summary of my researches later about this company, EnergyX, that Salton Sea lithium mining company, Talon, and Nouveux Monde graphite.
Notes about the live EnergyX webinar that just happened.
EnergyX has/is developing technology to do Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) which extracts lithium from aqueous brines. They started off with filtration technology using membranes (think reverse osmosis type technology) to extract and concentrate lithium from salty brines, but are now adding chemical (solvent) separation and ion adsorption technologies. They have applied for about 43 patents, none granted, and have licensed several more patents from U of Texas among others.
Historically, lithium is either mined from hard rock open pit mining (mostly in Australia) or concentrated from huge evaporation ponds which can only be done in specific geographic areas like some South American deserts. To get lithium from brines in North America, you are going to need some sort of DLE technology.
EnergyX is a private company. They raised $1.5M common stock in an initial crowdfunding about 1.5 years ago. They raised $10M in a Series A private placement last year. They are now raising money in another common stock crowdfunding program under SEC regulation A that started a month ago and will end this Friday (minimum investment $500). Unlike other companies that do crowdfunding, they've had no paid marketing for it, yet have attracted about $10M in this crowdfunding round so far.
When all is said and done (a bit of a complex cap table), they are raising money at a $475M market cap. Their offering circular is here: https://energyx.com/app/uploads/2022/07/EnergyX-Offering-Circular.pdf
About 180 people attended this webinar to answer questions about the offering and the company.
Company started 2018/2019. Spent two years doing R&D with their membranes trying to scale university research into field operations. In 2021 started building first pilot unit. Won a tender slot from Bolivia to demo their technology in a pilot plant. Deployed in the Bolivian desert beginning first of 2022 and pilot ended end of May. EnergyX was the only company who put a pilot in the field, other 7 just shipped brine to a lab. They didn't win a "contract" from Bolivia (still hasn't been awarded), but frankly the deal terms wouldn't have been financially acceptable to EnergyX anyways. But pilot opened doors to many other opportunities.
They are now building bigger, better, faster, more robust, larger membrane surface areas and fixing shortcomings found during Bolivian pilot. Are adding solvent extraction and ion absorption technologies to their portfolio of technologies since different brines from different areas require different techniques. Bolivian brine had lots of magnesium, so a membrane worked well there, but different brines have things like high temperatures (like Salton Sea) and a completely different impurity profile, hence the need for different extraction technologies.
Hope is to deploy these pilots into the field in the next 6 months with new partners. 2022/2023 will be focused on scaling this up to a pilot level of 3 - 10 tons lithium extracted per year. 2023/2024 will be to scale this up to demo level of 100 tons/yr. Then direct route to full commercialization in 2024/2025 or 10K - 50K tons lithium/yr.
They also have a lithium metal battery research project going on. They hired some people from John Goodenough's lab (he himself is retired, finally, at age 100). EnergyX's VP of battery technology is Goodenough's last PhD student. They are developing a polymeric/ceramic based solid state separator with a lithium metal anode (zero graphite). Testing using both NMC and LFP cathodes. Testing with different electrolytes in hundreds of coin cells. They are looking next at multi-layer pouch cells, 1AH, 150 cycles. They think they need to hit 800 cycles before commercially viable. I think 1,500 is more like it. I consider this very much a long shot technology.
Planning on doing another private offering? They don't know. They've had success doing it. However want to get strategic investors. Their Board will need to grow (right now, three insiders). If they get other investors, likely crowdfunding will likely cease (since other shareholders likely won't want that).
Majority of team is based in Austin.
Any relationship with Tesla? "Not allowed to talk, under NDA with Tesla". Funny.
Endeavor advisory board member? Ari Emmanuel. Why? They rep entertainers, sports stars, etc. They own the UFC. Ari reached out to EnergyX to become involved. Supposedly Ari is interested in green technologies.
Any other countries in South America they are working in? Argentina and Chile. ALB and SQM in Chile. Chile wants less water usage, which current evaporation pond tech uses a lot of, and EnergyX uses very little water.
In the US, looking at several customers. IRA legislation is helping a lot.
45 full time employees, most focused on the science.
Could tech be used for other things than DLE. Conceptually yes, but for now staying focused on lithium. Frankly, their technology isn't groundbreaking (a lot of it is commercially available), it's just that no one had applied it to lithium extraction before.
Note that most mining companies just expect to do their own refining and extraction, that's part of their core business. So unsure how many lithium extraction companies will use EnergyX. Really, a lot of this hinges on EnergyX patent portfolio and we have no idea what will get granted, how broad, and how defensible it is.
EnergyX wants to charge a license fee of about $1K/ton lithium extracted. Current price is $77K/ton, but that's just a blip, people expect steady state price to drop to $13K/ton or so.
That's it for now, I'll give my investing thoughts later.
EnergyX has/is developing technology to do Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) which extracts lithium from aqueous brines. They started off with filtration technology using membranes (think reverse osmosis type technology) to extract and concentrate lithium from salty brines, but are now adding chemical (solvent) separation and ion adsorption technologies. They have applied for about 43 patents, none granted, and have licensed several more patents from U of Texas among others.
Historically, lithium is either mined from hard rock open pit mining (mostly in Australia) or concentrated from huge evaporation ponds which can only be done in specific geographic areas like some South American deserts. To get lithium from brines in North America, you are going to need some sort of DLE technology.
EnergyX is a private company. They raised $1.5M common stock in an initial crowdfunding about 1.5 years ago. They raised $10M in a Series A private placement last year. They are now raising money in another common stock crowdfunding program under SEC regulation A that started a month ago and will end this Friday (minimum investment $500). Unlike other companies that do crowdfunding, they've had no paid marketing for it, yet have attracted about $10M in this crowdfunding round so far.
When all is said and done (a bit of a complex cap table), they are raising money at a $475M market cap. Their offering circular is here: https://energyx.com/app/uploads/2022/07/EnergyX-Offering-Circular.pdf
About 180 people attended this webinar to answer questions about the offering and the company.
Company started 2018/2019. Spent two years doing R&D with their membranes trying to scale university research into field operations. In 2021 started building first pilot unit. Won a tender slot from Bolivia to demo their technology in a pilot plant. Deployed in the Bolivian desert beginning first of 2022 and pilot ended end of May. EnergyX was the only company who put a pilot in the field, other 7 just shipped brine to a lab. They didn't win a "contract" from Bolivia (still hasn't been awarded), but frankly the deal terms wouldn't have been financially acceptable to EnergyX anyways. But pilot opened doors to many other opportunities.
They are now building bigger, better, faster, more robust, larger membrane surface areas and fixing shortcomings found during Bolivian pilot. Are adding solvent extraction and ion absorption technologies to their portfolio of technologies since different brines from different areas require different techniques. Bolivian brine had lots of magnesium, so a membrane worked well there, but different brines have things like high temperatures (like Salton Sea) and a completely different impurity profile, hence the need for different extraction technologies.
Hope is to deploy these pilots into the field in the next 6 months with new partners. 2022/2023 will be focused on scaling this up to a pilot level of 3 - 10 tons lithium extracted per year. 2023/2024 will be to scale this up to demo level of 100 tons/yr. Then direct route to full commercialization in 2024/2025 or 10K - 50K tons lithium/yr.
They also have a lithium metal battery research project going on. They hired some people from John Goodenough's lab (he himself is retired, finally, at age 100). EnergyX's VP of battery technology is Goodenough's last PhD student. They are developing a polymeric/ceramic based solid state separator with a lithium metal anode (zero graphite). Testing using both NMC and LFP cathodes. Testing with different electrolytes in hundreds of coin cells. They are looking next at multi-layer pouch cells, 1AH, 150 cycles. They think they need to hit 800 cycles before commercially viable. I think 1,500 is more like it. I consider this very much a long shot technology.
Planning on doing another private offering? They don't know. They've had success doing it. However want to get strategic investors. Their Board will need to grow (right now, three insiders). If they get other investors, likely crowdfunding will likely cease (since other shareholders likely won't want that).
Majority of team is based in Austin.
Any relationship with Tesla? "Not allowed to talk, under NDA with Tesla". Funny.
Endeavor advisory board member? Ari Emmanuel. Why? They rep entertainers, sports stars, etc. They own the UFC. Ari reached out to EnergyX to become involved. Supposedly Ari is interested in green technologies.
Any other countries in South America they are working in? Argentina and Chile. ALB and SQM in Chile. Chile wants less water usage, which current evaporation pond tech uses a lot of, and EnergyX uses very little water.
In the US, looking at several customers. IRA legislation is helping a lot.
45 full time employees, most focused on the science.
Could tech be used for other things than DLE. Conceptually yes, but for now staying focused on lithium. Frankly, their technology isn't groundbreaking (a lot of it is commercially available), it's just that no one had applied it to lithium extraction before.
Note that most mining companies just expect to do their own refining and extraction, that's part of their core business. So unsure how many lithium extraction companies will use EnergyX. Really, a lot of this hinges on EnergyX patent portfolio and we have no idea what will get granted, how broad, and how defensible it is.
EnergyX wants to charge a license fee of about $1K/ton lithium extracted. Current price is $77K/ton, but that's just a blip, people expect steady state price to drop to $13K/ton or so.
That's it for now, I'll give my investing thoughts later.
Last edited:
Notes from 7.28.22
e3lithium.ca
E3 Lithium - News Releases
E3 Metals is a lithium company with the goal of producing lithium products to power the growing electrical revolution. Based in Alberta, E3 Metals is developing the Clearwater Project on the backbone of the mature and sophisticated oil industry that will allow the Company to catapult its...
e3lithium.ca
EnergyX is an interesting company. Unlike any one junior lithium mine company, they make money across the entire lithium extraction industry. Well, at least across the parts of the industry that will use their technology instead of developing it in house. So that’s the first hurdle with EnergyX – how many companies will just develop direct lithium extraction in-house instead of paying a significant royalty to EnergyX? See the post right above this one for an example of a junior lithium mine that has its own in-house developed technology.
The technology that EnergyX uses isn’t exactly unknown to anyone. Membrane separation, solvent extraction and ion absorption are all well known technologies, especially to a mining company that is used to building plants to extract and concentrate small amounts of whatever they are mining into a pure commodity. A mining company doesn’t just extract 1% ore – they have to refine and concentrate it to a useful commodity level.
EnergyX does have patent applications, but how many will be granted? How broad are they?
Then there is their valuation. $475M for a pre-revenue company where it isn’t clear they have a profitable/viable business plan. Moreover, they will need to raise significantly more money than what they have so far, and I think they may have fallen afoul of a valuation trap. Yes, apparently you can raise $10M from retail investors who have a very fuzzy idea of market capitalization in a hot market (lithium), but what happens when lithium prices invariably fall back to earth right when you need to raise $50M, and crowdfunding won’t work anymore at that level? I foresee some sort of down round in their future frankly.
CEO isn’t technical, is 33 years old and hasn’t run anything before. Hmmm. Their VP of finance is the personal accountant for the CEO’s other activities. The CEO/Founder put into place voting preferences such that he will always have shareholder voting control. Would he give that up for a future financing round? Don’t know, but it is definitely a problem for any potential strategic investors right now.
My bottom line, if the valuation was significantly lower I could take a flyer on this private company, but it isn’t. So, pass.
The technology that EnergyX uses isn’t exactly unknown to anyone. Membrane separation, solvent extraction and ion absorption are all well known technologies, especially to a mining company that is used to building plants to extract and concentrate small amounts of whatever they are mining into a pure commodity. A mining company doesn’t just extract 1% ore – they have to refine and concentrate it to a useful commodity level.
EnergyX does have patent applications, but how many will be granted? How broad are they?
Then there is their valuation. $475M for a pre-revenue company where it isn’t clear they have a profitable/viable business plan. Moreover, they will need to raise significantly more money than what they have so far, and I think they may have fallen afoul of a valuation trap. Yes, apparently you can raise $10M from retail investors who have a very fuzzy idea of market capitalization in a hot market (lithium), but what happens when lithium prices invariably fall back to earth right when you need to raise $50M, and crowdfunding won’t work anymore at that level? I foresee some sort of down round in their future frankly.
CEO isn’t technical, is 33 years old and hasn’t run anything before. Hmmm. Their VP of finance is the personal accountant for the CEO’s other activities. The CEO/Founder put into place voting preferences such that he will always have shareholder voting control. Would he give that up for a future financing round? Don’t know, but it is definitely a problem for any potential strategic investors right now.
My bottom line, if the valuation was significantly lower I could take a flyer on this private company, but it isn’t. So, pass.
I've watched Howard and Rodney here and there for a year or two now, but started to watch more of the videos lately. I'm really trying to dig into all of them over time really, so I can try and absorb as much info as possible now that the minerals industry is getting more attention. Like I've said before, the best stock performance in my portfolio so far in this area for me is Frontier Lithium.
I'm not trying to push E3, it's just the next company I'm researching and want to post what I find to see what others think.
Here is Rodeny talking about E3:
I'm not trying to push E3, it's just the next company I'm researching and want to post what I find to see what others think.
Here is Rodeny talking about E3:
Well, once he actually starts talking about E3 specifically about halfway through, it is interesting. It is trading at like 20% of NPV, unlike many other more advanced lithium extraction juniors like Standard Lithium which are more like 80%. That is probably because E3 is further behind, and maybe because of its relatively distant location in NA in Alberta. Interesting.
I also really like that they have the land AND the technical equipment, so they are all vertically integrated like Tesla.
Good article on Novonix Novonix: Early-Stage, Well-Positioned Anode Material Manufacturer (NASDAQ:NVX)
So I'm looking at the mining sector in general, and all the majors are trading a really low PEs and sporting some juicy dividends. For example:
BHP (copper, silver, zinc, molybdenum, uranium, gold, and iron ore among other minerals): P/E: 6.29, Yield: 12.69%
Glencore (copper, cobalt, nickel, zinc, aluminum, and iron ore among other elements): P/E: 4.45, Yield: 4.79%
Vale (iron ore and nickel): P/E: 3.45, Yield: 9.79%
Rio Tinto (aluminum, copper, diamonds, gold, iron ore, and lithium): P/E: 5.18, Yield: 11.9%
I know there's talk of a recession, and commodities take a hit in a recession, but these stocks appear pretty beaten down as it is. Anyone know of a good reason to not invest in these?
BHP (copper, silver, zinc, molybdenum, uranium, gold, and iron ore among other minerals): P/E: 6.29, Yield: 12.69%
Glencore (copper, cobalt, nickel, zinc, aluminum, and iron ore among other elements): P/E: 4.45, Yield: 4.79%
Vale (iron ore and nickel): P/E: 3.45, Yield: 9.79%
Rio Tinto (aluminum, copper, diamonds, gold, iron ore, and lithium): P/E: 5.18, Yield: 11.9%
I know there's talk of a recession, and commodities take a hit in a recession, but these stocks appear pretty beaten down as it is. Anyone know of a good reason to not invest in these?
Buckminster
Well-Known Member
I have Albemarle, Vale, Lithium Frontier, TMC, Neo Performance Minerals, MP Materials, Euro Manganese & E3 Lithium to cover all the EV needs.
TMC is up ~10% on news. I doubled position. Yes I bought the pop but at least it lowered my average cost basis. lol sigh.
TMC and Allseas Achieve Historic Milestone: Nodules Collected from the Seafloor and Lifted to the Production Vessel Using 4 km Riser During Pilot Trials in the Clarion Clipperton Zone for First Time Since the 1970s
In the first integrated nodule collection system test conducted in the Clarion Clipperton Zone since the 1970s, TMC and Allseas have successfully collected an initial batch of seafloor nodules, and transported them up a 4km-long riser system to the surface. During a 60-minute pilot collection...
finance.yahoo.com
TMC and Allseas Achieve Historic Milestone: Nodules Collected from the Seafloor and Lifted to the Production Vessel Using 4 km Riser During Pilot Trials in the Clarion Clipperton Zone for First Time Since the 1970s
In the first integrated nodule collection system test conducted in the Clarion Clipperton Zone since the 1970s, TMC and Allseas have successfully collected an initial batch of seafloor nodules, and transported them up a 4km-long riser system to the surface. During a 60-minute pilot collection...
exciting times! I really hope this pans out...TMC is up ~10% on news. I doubled position. Yes I bought the pop but at least it lowered my average cost basis. lol sigh.
TMC and Allseas Achieve Historic Milestone: Nodules Collected from the Seafloor and Lifted to the Production Vessel Using 4 km Riser During Pilot Trials in the Clarion Clipperton Zone for First Time Since the 1970s
In the first integrated nodule collection system test conducted in the Clarion Clipperton Zone since the 1970s, TMC and Allseas have successfully collected an initial batch of seafloor nodules, and transported them up a 4km-long riser system to the surface. During a 60-minute pilot collection...
There is all this talk of a recession, but the world economy is in a very weird state. I don't see a traditional recession coming. In the US unemployment is about as low as it can get. We're experiencing inflation because of supply chain disruptions and a labor shortage, not because of the traditional reasons the economy overheats.
Europe is dealing with an energy crisis which is mostly the war that is hurting everything, but the UK was already starting to see problems in the energy sector before the war started. In the UK the chickens are beginning to come home to roost because of Brexit.
To a large degree we're in uncharted economic waters. There are several variables that the world economy has not dealt with in decades, and never dealt with since the economy evolved into its current form.
Still seems to me like an expensive way of mining. Has TMC done an economic analysis like mines do?TMC is up ~10% on news. I doubled position. Yes I bought the pop but at least it lowered my average cost basis. lol sigh.
TMC and Allseas Achieve Historic Milestone: Nodules Collected from the Seafloor and Lifted to the Production Vessel Using 4 km Riser During Pilot Trials in the Clarion Clipperton Zone for First Time Since the 1970s
In the first integrated nodule collection system test conducted in the Clarion Clipperton Zone since the 1970s, TMC and Allseas have successfully collected an initial batch of seafloor nodules, and transported them up a 4km-long riser system to the surface. During a 60-minute pilot collection...
So I couldn’t sit on the sidelines any longer. I took a position in these stocks a bit before market close, so basically low on the day, to capitalize on the blood in the streets. There’s a decent chance these stocks could go lower from here, but not much lower since they are sporting P/Es of between 3 and 6! These particular stocks are all mining majors and all have crazy high dividends as well. A combination of battery minerals and general mining sector stocks:
RIO, GLNCY, SQM, BHP, and VALE.
I am also building a smaller position in E3 Lithium, but that’s quite a different kind of stock. Micro cap, and it’ll take me 2-3 weeks to buy even half of what I put into each of the above stocks.
RIO, GLNCY, SQM, BHP, and VALE.
I am also building a smaller position in E3 Lithium, but that’s quite a different kind of stock. Micro cap, and it’ll take me 2-3 weeks to buy even half of what I put into each of the above stocks.
FACT SHEET: Biden-Harris Administration Driving U.S. Battery Manufacturing and Good-Paying Jobs | The White House
Department of Energy Awarding $2.8 Billion from Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to Boost Domestic Manufacturing Administration Launching “American Battery Materials Initiative” to Strengthen Critical Mineral Supply Chains Today, President Biden is announcing that the Department of Energy is...
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law: Battery Materials Processing and Battery Manufacturing Recycling Selections
Funded with $2.8 Billion through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the portfolio of 21 projects supports new, retrofitted, and expanded commercial-scale domestic facilities to produce battery materials, processing, cell components, and battery recycling.
FACT SHEET: Biden-Harris Administration Driving U.S. Battery Manufacturing and Good-Paying Jobs | The White House
Department of Energy Awarding $2.8 Billion from Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to Boost Domestic Manufacturing Administration Launching “American Battery Materials Initiative” to Strengthen Critical Mineral Supply Chains Today, President Biden is announcing that the Department of Energy is...www.whitehouse.gov
View attachment 865355
Bipartisan Infrastructure Law: Battery Materials Processing and Battery Manufacturing Recycling Selections
Funded with $2.8 Billion through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the portfolio of 21 projects supports new, retrofitted, and expanded commercial-scale domestic facilities to produce battery materials, processing, cell components, and battery recycling.www.energy.gov
But of course. I just bought a basket of five battery mineral companies, and decided to NOT buy Talon since they were too early stage for my liking. Up 20% today. Oh well.
Tesla battery supplier Panasonic signed agreement with NMG for graphite offtake. Stock up 3% today on announcement.
nmg.com
NMG, Panasonic Energy and Mitsui Announce Offtake and Strategic Partnership Supporting the Supply of Active Anode Material plus US$50 Million Private Placement by Mitsui, Pallinghurst and Investissement Québec - Nouveau Monde Graphite
NMG, Panasonic Energy and Mitsui announce offtake and strategic partnership supporting the supply of active anode material
nmg.com
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