AGORACOM Small-cap Investor Relations Blog

SPONSOR: Lomiko Metals is focused on the exploration and development of minerals for the new green economy such as lithium and graphite. Lomiko owns 80% of the high-grade La Loutre graphite Property, Lac Des Iles Graphite Property and the 100% owned Quatre Milles Graphite Property. Lomiko is uniquely poised to supply the growing EV battery market. Click Here For More Information

• The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) has singled out accessibility of raw materials as a pressing issue, warning that a prompt solution for the development of batteries is needed to make electric mobility and sustainable transport possible.

The European Union needs to secure permanent access to raw materials as soon as possible in order to develop a strong battery industry for electric vehicles. The alarm was sounded at the debate held in Brussels on 5th February 2020 by the Section for Transport, Energy, Infrastructure and the Information Society (TEN).

Widespread e-mobility, with zero COâ‚‚ emissions, is the next key step towards making sustainable transport and climate neutrality happen. Nevertheless, only by having ongoing access to raw materials for batteries will Europe be able to move away from fossil-based fuels and embrace electrification.

Colin Lustenhouwer, rapporteur for last year’s EESC opinion on batteries, pointed out that it was vital to raise awareness of the urgent measures needed.

“We must take immediate action” said Mr Lustenhouwer. “The accessibility of raw materials is an ongoing issue in an area where Europe has few resources and would like to guarantee supply. Electrification is the only solution for sustainable fuel and this requires batteries.”

Pierre Jean Coulon, president of the TEN section, added that for Europe’s sustainable future, the whole battery lifespan needs to be considered and that European countries need to equip themselves with the resources needed. European businesses can only become a major player in battery development and deployment in the global market by taking a huge leap forward over the next few years.

Car batteries are a crucial issue for Europe’s future and should not be taken for granted. They account for 40 percent of the cost of an electric vehicle, but 96 percent of them are produced outside Europe. The raw materials are not available in the EU to the extent needed and have to be imported. Lithium, nickel, manganese and cobalt mainly come from South America and Asia. This means that if the EU does not act, it will become increasingly dependent on third countries such as Brazil and China.

Furthermore, the need to secure the supply of raw materials for batteries is leading to international competition that may well affect the geopolitical balance and cause political tensions in exporting countries. The EU therefore needs to act swiftly to ensure that it has access on the global market and so will not be vulnerable as a result of the imminent race for raw materials.

The European strategy for batteries must be comprehensive and allow for their entire lifecycle, from creation to deployment and recycling. All actors have to be involved and pull together, in line with the principles of the value-chain approach which factors in every stage.

The EESC flagged up the importance of material recycling in its 2019 opinion on batteries, where ‘urban mining’ was promoted as a possible way to build new batteries by recovering elements from used products and waste, such as discarded electric and electronic devices.

In the opinion, the Committee called for a strong European battery industry and supported the Strategic Action Plan presented by the European Commission, emphasising two priorities: on the one hand, heavier investment was needed to achieve the necessary level of technological expertise while on the other, solutions had to be found to secure the supply of raw materials from third countries and EU sources.

Stressing that the EU needed to do more and adopt a structural approach to batteries, the EESC was one of the first institutions to bring together all the social partners to point out that batteries are one of the main challenges for Europe’s green and prosperous future.

SOURCE: https://www.renewableenergymagazine.com/electric_hybrid_vehicles/accessibility-of-raw-materials-for-ev-batteries-20200210

SPONSOR: Lomiko Metals is focused on the exploration and development of minerals for the new green economy such as lithium and graphite. Lomiko owns 80% of the high-grade La Loutre graphite Property, Lac Des Iles Graphite Property and the 100% owned Quatre Milles Graphite Property. Lomiko is uniquely poised to supply the growing EV battery market. Click Here For More Information

Electric vans charge at a warehouse of the German postal and logistics service Deutsche Post near Frankfurt in July 2018. Fleet vehicles are increasingly going electric in Europe and China, and some analysts say American fleets will be following suit.

• As electric cars grow in popularity and visibility, experts say a revolution is coming in a place most people overlook: corporate and municipal fleets.

• The scooter company Lime is the latest firm to announce that it plans to completely remove gas- and diesel-powered vehicles from its fleet and power its new electric work vehicles with renewable energy.

Lime is famous, of course, for electric vehicles — the small battery-powered scooters that have popped up on sidewalks across the United States. And as the world’s largest scooter company, it promotes itself as an eco-friendly alternative to driving. But so far, some gas-guzzling is still involved behind the scenes.

“All of our scooters and e-bikes are already electric, already powered by renewables,” says Andrew Savage, the head of sustainability at Lime. “We’re going to take the vans and the vehicles used to manage those programs and transition those to zero emissions as well.”

Lime’s fleet isn’t large — a few hundred vehicles for now. But the company is not alone in plotting the switch.

Lime, along with companies like Ikea and Unilever, is joining the EV100 initiative to commit to an all-electric fleet. Other large companies, such as DHL, Amazon and AT&T, have committed to “accelerating” the transition to electric fleet vehicles.

Millions of fleet vehicles are on the road — everything from delivery trucks and maintenance vans to police cars and school buses. Right now, less than 1% of those vehicles are electric, according to the research firm Guidehouse (formerly known as Navigant).

But in a decade, the group predicts that 12% of fleet vehicles will be plug-ins. That will mean a rise from about 2 million electric fleet vehicles now to more than 70 million in 2030.

“Given the life span of vehicles … 12% [of the] population will require a significant portion of new vehicles sold being plug-in electric vehicles,” says Guidehouse’s Ted Walker.

Interest in sustainability will drive some of that growth. Companies like Lime that market themselves as climate friendly or have made climate pledges to investors and partners need to reduce the emissions from their fleets in order to restrain emissions. And around the world — particularly in Europe and China — government pressure is spurring investment in electric vehicles of all types.

But there are other factors too. In some ways, selling electric vehicles to companies is easier than selling one to an individual car owner.

Consider the price. “Electric vehicles are going to have a higher purchase price, but there’s a lower maintenance, lower fuel cost,” Walker says. Where an individual might focus on the sticker shock, a company is more likely to consider the lifetime cost of the vehicle.

Then there’s range anxiety. It takes longer to charge a battery than to fill up a gas tank, and some people (particularly those who have never owned or leased an electric vehicle) worry that they’ll go on a long trip and run out of juice. The concern is common even for drivers who very rarely drive long distances.

Fleet operators think differently; they know how far their cars go in a day, says Steve Burns, the CEO of Lordstown Motors. The Ohio startup is making a pickup truck specifically to sell to fleets.

“We are catering mostly to people that stay local — whether that’s a florist, a landscaper, a police officer,” Burns says. “[Our truck] can go 250 miles on a charge. Most of these type of folks go 60 or 70 miles a day.”

There are some logistical challenges — fleet operators have to set up charging infrastructure in their garages or parking lots, for instance.

But there’s another obstacle. Lordstown Motors’ truck, the Endurance, isn’t available yet. No mass-production electric pickup has yet arrived on the U.S. market. And in America, options for vans and other work vehicles are similarly slim.

“It’s only a small handful, and the supply is actually quite constrained,” says Savage, of Lime.

So companies are expressing their interest in electric fleets partly as a signal to automakers — that they need to catch up with demand.

SOURCE: https://www.npr.org/2020/02/07/803145517/from-delivery-trucks-to-scooter-moving-vans-fleets-are-going-electric

SPONSOR: Lomiko Metals is focused on the exploration and development of minerals for the new green economy such as lithium and graphite. Lomiko owns 80% of the high-grade La Loutre graphite Property , Lac Des Iles Graphite Property and the 100% owned Quatre Milles Graphite Property. Lomiko is uniquely poised to supply the growing EV battery market. Click Here For More Information

Apart from driving a clean transportation revolution over the next three decades, electric vehicles (EVs) could help the power grid’s storage needs as growing shares of renewable energy sources—predominantly solar and wind—are being incorporated into electricity grids. 

Batteries from EVs could have so much more potential energy storage by 2050 that electric cars could be the ones to boost the energy storage of the power grid to accommodate rising solar and wind capacity, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) says.

While electric vehicles and renewables may now look as two totally separate clean-energy technologies, and EVs are a strain on power grids when charging at peak electricity demand, there are potentially huge benefits to the power grid if EVs are plugged in to smart grids, IRENA experts say.

The EV fleet of the future could create vast electricity storage capacity, the agency says.

Future EV battery capacity may dwarf stationary battery capacity by 2050, experts at IRENA said in an analysis from last year. In 2050, around 14 terawatt-hours (TWh) of EV batteries would be available to provide grid services, compared to 9 TWh of stationary batteries, according to the agency.  

“Smart charging for electric vehicles (EVs) holds the key to unleash synergies between clean transport sector and low-carbon electricity. It minimises the load impact from EVs and unlocks the flexibility to use more solar and wind power,” IRENA said.   

Smart charging, unlike uncontrolled charging, also decreases simultaneity and lowers peaks in demand. 

In addition, smart charging of EVs has the potential to significantly cut the peak load and avoid grid reinforcements, at a cost of 10 percent of the total cost of reinforcing the grid, according to IRENA’s experts.

In the key forms of advanced EV charging, in V2H/B (vehicle to home/building), vehicles could act as supplement power suppliers to the home, while in V2G (Vehicle-to-grid), the smart grid controls vehicle charging and returns electricity to the grid.

Adjusting charging patterns, considering that EVs currently are idle in parking for 90–95 percent of the time for most cars, could contribute to both system and local flexibility, IRENA says.

Yet, challenges to this smart EV charging approach remain.

Technical challenges include uncertainty over how using EV batteries to return electricity to the grid would degrade the battery. Another hurdle is the lack of standardization and consumer knowledge of the vehicle-to-grid systems.

Additional challenges lie in consumer preference for the fastest charging possible, which diminishes the use of an EV battery to provide flexibility to the power grid.

“With slow charging the EV battery is connected to the grid for longer periods of time, increasing the possibility of providing flexibility services to the power system,” IRENA says.

The smart charging systems would work best with slow charges, so drivers’ preferences right now are not conducive to EV batteries helping the grid flexibility, according to IRENA’s Arina Anisie, one of the authors of the agency’s analysis on smart charging.

“It really needs to change the behavior of the consumer to be able to harness the synergies between mobility and wind and solar,” Anisie told Forbes contributor Jeff McMahon. Related: OPEC+ Considers 500,000 Bpd Cut In Emergency Meeting

According to IRENA, a mass rollout of smart EV charging would also depend on whether the approach could get political support amid increasingly ambitious targets for lower and net zero carbon emissions in developed economies, especially in Europe.

If the uptake of smart charging takes off this decade, grid flexibility from EVs could increase dramatically by 2030, IRENA reckons.

“If unleashed starting today, the use of EVs as a flexibility resource via smart charging approaches would reduce the need for investment in flexible, but carbon-intensive, fossil-fuel power plants to balance renewables,” the agency says in its analysis.  

This approach may be promising and could integrate clean mobility with increased solar and wind capacity, but it still has several key challenges to overcome, including a shift in drivers’ preferences toward buying EV as their next car and using slower but smart charging rather than ultra-fast charging—and these preferences could be the hardest thing to change.  

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

SOURCE: https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Electric-Vehicles-Could-Transform-Energy-Storage.html#

Vancouver, B.C., Feb. 05, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Lomiko Metals Inc. (TSX-V: LMR, OTC: LMRMF, FSE: DH8C) (Lomiko or the “Company”) is pleased to announce plans to move forward with assessment and development of the La Loutre Property for 2020.  The goals are as follows:

1) Complete 100% Acquisition of the Property

2) Complete Metallurgy and Graphite Characterization

3) Complete a Technical Report in accordance with NI 43-101 Guidelines

A “technical report” means a report prepared and filed in accordance with this Instrument and Form 43-101F1 Technical Report that includes, in summary form, all material scientific and technical information in respect of the subject property as of the effective date of the technical report;

4) Complete Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) compliant with NI 43-101 Guidelines

PEA means a study, other than a pre-feasibility or feasibility study, that includes an economic analysis of the potential viability of mineral resources;

Further details regarding the plan will be released when consultants are assigned for each task.

Results from Drilling Program

Results from the 2019 program (see Table 1 below, and Figure 1) at the Refractory Zone of the La Loutre graphite project (the  “Project”) indicate considerable promise. A total of 21 holes were completed in 2019 on the Refractory Zone for a total of 2,985 metres.  The Project is owned by Lomiko (80%) and Quebec Precious Metals Corporation (20%).

“La Loutre has proven to be a large and high-grade area worthy of further investment.” stated A.  Paul Gill, CEO. “The only operating graphite mine in North America is the Imerys Graphite & Carbon at Lac-des-ÃŽles, 53 km northwest of La Loutre which reported Proven reserves of 5.2 M Tonnes at a grade of 7.42 % Cg in July 1988 before the start of production.” (reference: Potentiel de la minéralisation en graphite au Québec, N’Golo Togola, MERN, page 31, Conférence Québec Mines, November 24 2016).

* mineralization hosted on adjacent and/or nearby projects is not necessarily indicative of mineralization hosted on the Company’s property:

Although the recent focus was on the Refractory Zone, the Project was also subject of an independent technical report in accordance with NI 43-101 – Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects, prepared by B. Turcotte and G. Servelle of InnovExplo Inc. from Val-d’Or, Québec, and O. Peters, of AGP Mining Inc., dated March 24,  2016, filed for the Project’s Graphene-Battery Zone. The report presented a mineral resource estimate of 18.4 M Tonnes at a grade of 3.19% carbon flake graphite (“Cg”) in the Indicated category and 16.7 M Tonnes at 3.75% Cg in the Inferred category using a cut-off of 1.5% Cg.

The above-noted 2016 mineral resource does not include the current results or the significant intercepts from the Refractory Zone in 2016 which were as follows:

LL-16-01 – 7.74% Cg over 135.60 m including 16.81%Cg over 44.10 m

LL-16-02 – 17.08% Cg over 22.30 m and 14.80% Cg over 15.10 m

LL-16-03 – 14.56% Cg over 110.80 m

The next task is to complete a new resource estimate in compliance with NI 43-101 for the entire Project since the above-mentioned 2016 resource estimate including the 2016 and 2019 drilling at the Refractory Zone.

Table 1: Results of the 21 drill holes of the 2019 drill program. The width is drill indicated core length. Insufficient data exists to determine true width at this time

On the basis of the available geophysical and 2016 and 2019 drilling data, the strike length of the mineralization is estimated at 900 m in the NW-SE direction and is open in both directions.  A detailed interpretation of the results will be carried out to better estimate the thickness and strike length of the mineralized zone.

The Project consists of contiguous claim blocks totaling 29 km2 situated approximately 53 km SE of the Imerys Carbon and Graphite Lac-des-ÃŽles mine, formerly known as the Timcal mine, North America’s only operating graphite mine. It is accessible by driving NW from Montreal for a distance of approximately 170 kilometres

The 2019 exploration program was managed by Consul-Teck Exploration Minière Inc. (“Consul- Teck”) of Val-d’Or, Quebec, who designed the drilling campaign, supervised the program and logged and sampled the core.

Quality Assurance/Quality Control

Consul-Teck implemented QA/QC procedures to ensure best practices in sampling and analysis of the core samples. The drill core was logged and then split, with one half sent for assay and the other retained in the core box as a witness sample. Duplicates and blanks were inserted at a regular interval into the sample stream.

The samples in secure tagged bags were delivered directly to the analytical facility for analysis. In this case, the analytical facility was the ALS Minerals laboratory facility in Val-d’Or, Quebec. The samples are weighed and identified prior to sample preparation. The samples are crushed to 70% minus 2 mm, then separated and pulverized to 85% passing 75µm. All samples are analyzed for Cg using the C-IR18 method.

Qualified Person

Jean-Sébastien Lavallée (OGQ #773), Geologist, is a shareholder of both companies, VP Exploration of QPM and a Qualified Person under NI 43-101, has reviewed and approved the technical content of this release.

For more information on Lomiko Metals, review the website at www.lomiko.com, contact A. Paul Gill at 604-729-5312 or email: [email protected].

On Behalf of the Board,

“A. Paul Gill”

Chief Executive Officer