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 [Music] welcome to CEO insights I'm Marilyn de Gman with investing news.com I'm speaking with John wisby CEO of international lithium hi John hi welcome back to the show yeah thanks for having me on again yeah so let's talk about uh the lithium property that you've sold in Ireland uh could you talk a bit more about that what's what's the update on that yeah well I mean we um we announced um back in September that we we we'd sold um uh a share in the OR we'd sold our remaining stake in the um in the

project and um we'll be selling the company the the the shares as well um it's it's it's a good lithium property um the majority partner is um ganang lithium and um know they had 55% we had 45% and um we could kind of see that that was going to lead to our being gradually diluted and it it it seemed a good time to to sell that property keep a a decent um royalty which we've manag to negotiate and um and at the same time um use that money to invest in other projects and um which which we be doing

so um so we we had a bit of a hiccup because um we suddenly um were told that maybe the Canadian authorities would um regard that as um you any foreign asset owned by Canadian company could be a matter of strategic National importance for Canada and we we thought that was strange because it it wasn't a matter of strategic importance for our company so how could it be for Canada anyway we had to go through that and um it was a and um that's that's that's now um been okayed and um and um and we're on the

final straight of closing the deal right and then speaking of Canada you do have a the project that you're focused on which is the rally Lake lithium and ridium project could you talk about the progress on that uh yeah sure so we um about a year ago we um we um announced a paa on the um Raleigh Lake project um we have lithium and rubidium there as you said but we only did the PA on the lithium because the ridium is a slightly more um complicated um calculation because the market is smaller so you you

have to um there had to be more analysis done um but so the the npv of that at that time was um$ 3 42.9 million Canadian dollars very very very nice so unfortunately what's happened since then is the lithium price is foren quite a bit and um I I remember at the time we launched it I was a bit upset because if we' done it 6 months earlier as other companies had it would have been nearer 700 million but now of course it's quite a lot less than that that amount so um we're likely to complete that this year

by doing a paa on the rubidium as well and um that um that seems logic it was always a logical thing to do but we we didn't need to do more analysis of the market ruidum is valuable metal it's kind of priced per kilogram rather than per ton and um and um that could be actually know the deciding factor at Ry Lake to make it really valuable as opposed to quite interesting and so that's that's still exciting and um and we have um quite a large deposit there so um we're beace it's for investors

maybe that's not too familiar with uh ridium can you talk about uh the opportunities there uh what's the application and what's the market opportunity okay so um I mean ridium is it's an Alkali metal just like just like lithium is and sodium potassium then rubidium then cesium so basically you can use it for the same sort of things as cesium where cesium is used for high Precision atomic clocks so can ridian be um space clocks um you know cesium can be used in um oil wells for for as cesium formate for at

the bottom of an oil well um and so could ridium and um so we we see quite a lot of applications the market is undoubtedly much lower smaller than than for lithium um so the therefore getting data is more difficult it's more opaque um and um but um you know for for example space clocks for example High Precision atomic clocks for the military and that's why ridium is a strategic metal in the United States not not yet in Canada why not um but um but it but it is in the US and uh so it's um it's a

it's a valuable metal um so if you multiply up the price per kilo it's kind of you know a million dollar per ton ra rather than you know like $1,000 per kilo so um whe whether that price would hold if if there's a lot of it developed don't know but um anyway it's it's a good problem to have yeah and you've also make a made a strategic uh I guess identification of Zimbabwe as a strategic location for your Global lithium strategy what's going on there okay I mean so the reason we we think

about was interesting is that um it's the number six in the world or or number seven something like that for for lithium reserves um it's a country which has its um it clearly had its troubles as a country it had hyperinflation it's definitely coming out of that now with within with the the the new government seven or eight years ago and um it's got a quite educated Workforce and um and it's got lots of opportunities and so we've applied for for various what are called exclusive

prospecting orders where you get the sole rights for an area like 50,000 um hectares quite big big areas and um and if we assuming we get those then then actually we got quite an interesting asset down there it it won't be just lithium and EV there always other metals that that are there as well and um so we hope to able to make some announcements I I it's taken much longer than I thought and hoped but um I I think we're almost there but I I might told you that six months ago so I I I

I'm I'm past the point of predicting well we'll definitely watch out for that um in terms of the you you've talked about the you know macro in the macro level the lithium price what are your um you know sort of what what are you seeing i' i' I've read some reports that 2025 you know will lithium will have a a comeback in terms of pricing like what are your thoughts on that I me obviously I don't have a crystal wall any more than you anybody else but um you have to look at the macro picture

and so clearly there's more Supply coming on on board or there was before the lithium price for a lot of people have sort of put their plans of Hope um but there's also obviously increasing demand so whether you you know the electric cars with a with a range of 200 km were not that interesting whether you get them subs or not but electric cars with a a range of a th000 kilometers start to be much more interesting and then you just talking about the price and the economics like for everything else and I I think most

people in cities want a clean City they they would rather have an electric car than have than breeding in diesel fumes so whether you're extreme green or or or extreme not green I mean you know nobody wants a dirty City and um so I think the movement towards electric cars is Unstoppable um especially in cities and um and that's going to power the the demand for for a long long time um then you get things like Electric battery storage clearly lithium's got a par play that big Market um and um so I see the

the demand going up and up um kind of exponentially for the next at least the next 10 years the only question is whether Supply runs behind that or or or ahead of it and um and obviously the the the fall in lithium prices has has curbed that supply and um and probably that that would that would help to accentuate the next um upturn rather than um just make it a slight upturn but when that would happen God knows um but I I think we've it looks to me like we've bottomed out um you know from the

last last six months it's been here but it hasn't gone further down and further down right and so over the next the near term what can the uh what are some of the Catalyst like are you working on uh something of the near term well Ian we we are going to be looking very carefully at the whole rubidium um thing this year because um I mean we we have something very valuable there and I you know we want to make sure that we can maximize the value of it um rather than just of saying it's academically

interesting um and lithium we we're we're looking at our um strategic options for Raleigh Lake um and um whether that means we Finance it or we or we partner for it or we you know all sorts of things that we that we could do um we also have a small property in um in um which I should have mentioned in in Ontario for which um has copper potential has got it's got a big VMS volcanic massive sulfide um um depos it and um we we haven't yet got a resource estimate so I can't um you know talk

about that but um but that could that could be interesting as well so those things are things we're going to look at carry on developing and I hope that Zimbabwe will come soon in which case we we may have a very powerful Story to Tell in a year's time about what's going on there and so so in in interesting time um I'd prefer the lithium price back at 80,000 than at 10,000 but but um you know on the other hand those aren't bad problems to Happ yeah we'll leave it at that thanks John for joining me

and thanks everyone for watching join us again next time for another edition of CEO insight