Morning Briefing: Lithium Americas Receives $2.26B Loan from US Department of Energy

Welcome to Mining Stock Daily. I’m Trevor Hall. 

Today is Thursday March 14th.

Yesterday gold traded sideways in the overnight action but suddenly took off higher around 6 a.m. New York time. The price shot up from $2163 to as high $2,185 before a shallow pullback and an afternoon session close at $2,179. Silver was more interesting. Poor man's gold started down the runway shortly after midnight. It took off from the runway with the price at $24.55 and then went vertical for a while, running from $24.55 and over $25. Silver closed at $25.22, up over 3% from Tuesday, and is even higher Wednesday evening as this is being written. The Mining Stock Journal said that it feels as if there's the potential for a shock and awe move higher in gold and silver. The mining stocks, despite a sell-off in the general stock market, cue'd off of the metals  and traded higher Wednesday, with the Arca Gold Bugs index up 2.1% and GDX up 2.4%. The Mining Stock Journal noted that the junior micro-cap project development stocks are still being largely ignored by the market but that if the current move in gold and silver continues, the place to be invested is the juniors with the expectation of minimally 5-10x upside potential.

We will get to the news from the miners and explorers in a moment, but first a word about today’s sponsor.

This episode of Mining Stock Daily is brought to you by… Vizsla Silver.

Vizsla Silver is focused on becoming one of the world’s largest single-asset silver producers through the exploration and development of the 100% owned Panuco-Copala silver-gold district in Sinaloa, Mexico. The company consolidated this historic district in 2019 and has now completed over 325,000 meters of drilling. The company has the world's largest, undeveloped high-grade silver resource. Learn more at ⁠https://vizslasilvercorp.com/⁠

And here’s what you need to know this morning….

Lithium Americas has received a conditional commitment from the US Department of Energy for a $2.26 billion loan under the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program for financing the construction of the processing facilities at Thacker Pass in Nevada. Based on the terms of the Conditional Commitment, the Loan for $2.26 billion will have interest rates fixed from the date of each monthly advance for the term of the loan at applicable U.S. Treasury rates. The Loan amount includes interest accrued during construction, which is estimated to be $290 million over the three-year period. Thacker Pass is currently the largest known Measured and Indicated lithium resource in North America, targeting total production capacity of 80,000 tpa of battery-quality lithium carbonate to be developed in two phases of 40,000 tpa, respectively. (TSX: LAC) (NYSE: LAC) News Release

Ridgeline Minerals shared results of its expanded high-resolution drone magnetics geophysical survey at the Selena CRD Project in Nevada. The data has identified a new porphyry anomaly located 1.0 kilometer to the southeast of the Chinchilla Oxide discovery. This area has never been drilled and measures approximately 2km by 1 km across the interpreted anomaly. The Anomaly directly correlates with a coincident gravity anomaly suggesting a significant density contrast between the porphyry anomaly and surrounding sediment. The target is interpreted as the potential source to a northwest trending, Jurassic-age dike swarm that is intimately associated with both silver ("Ag") - lead ("Pb") - zinc ("Zn) - gold ("Au") and high-grade Copper ("Cu") - Tungsten ("W") mineralization beneath the Chinchilla Oxide zone. (TSXV: RDG) (OTCQB: RDGMF) News Release

Hot Chili announced the company has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with Puerto Las Losas to  evaluate bulk tonnage loading alternatives for copper concentrates from the Company's Costa Fuego Copper-Gold Project. Importantly, the MOU with PLL provides Hot Chili the right, for up to five years, to negotiate a binding Port Services Agreement for Costa Fuego. The potential Port Service Agreement would include a "Take or Pay Volume" clause, based on at least 80% of Costa Fuego's projected future annual concentrate production. Under the terms of the agreement, Hot Chili and PLL will undertake a port Feasibility Study, which will be managed by PLL, and include Pre-Feasibility Engineering (FEL2), Feasibility Engineering (FEL3) and Environmental Studies. Hot Chili will fund 20% of the port Feasibility Study, which is estimated to cost approximately US$4.6 million and take approximately two years to complete. (TSXV: HCH) (OTCQX: HHLKF) News Release

Riley Gold has entered into an exploration and venture option agreement with Kinross, granting Kinross the right to earn up to 75% interest in the Riley Gold’s Pipeline West/Clipper Gold Project in Nevada. Kinross will need to spend a minimum of US$20M to earn that ownership. Kinross will assume operatorship of the project immediately as well as take a strategic 9.9% (on a partially diluted basis) equity interest in the Company through a private placement of $1.2M Canadian. (TSXV: RLYG) (OTCQB: RLYGF) News Release

Perpetua Resources has named Jon Cherry as the company’s new Chief Executive Officer. Cherry joins Perpetua Resources with over 33 years of extensive mining industry experience including permitting, capital raising, project development, joint venture formation, and operations. He most recently served as Chairman, President, and CEO of PolyMet Mining. During his tenure at PolyMet, the NorthMet project received the highest rating the Environmental Protection Agency has ever given to a mining project.  Additionally, Mr. Cherry played a leading role in negotiating a joint venture with Teck Resources before PolyMet's sale to Glencore. (Nasdaq: PPTA / TSX: PPTA) News Release

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