Episode 231: Dr. Tom Benson

Hi, it's Joe Lowry. Welcome to another episode of the Global Lithium Pipe Cast. Today is episode 231. My guest is Dr. Tom Benson, aka the doctor of volcanoes. He is the vice president of exploration at Lithium Argentina. Tom's last solo episode was almost five years ago and that is too long a gap. We cover a lot of ground in the hour. So without further ado, Tom Benson. Tom Benson, welcome back for my count, your fifth appearance, your third solo appearance. But because it's been five years since you've been and done a solo episode, I think new members of the audience need to get your backstory. Well, thanks for having me, Joe, and glad to be on again. Quick whirlwind tour in my background. From the Northeast, I went to school, undergrading geology, studying the granite and metamorphic rocks in New England. Following that, I worked at MIT and the Iceland Geological Survey, looking at geothermal resources. Then I went to Stanford to do my PhD in volcanology and lithium resources. Before it was cool, because the EV boom happened, I would say 2016, 2017, that's when I started and went to the dark side, leaving academia to join the mining world. At that point, that's lithium America has recruited me after I had a paper published in Nature. It was then named the Kings Valley deposit that we renamed "Backer Pass," bringing the "Backer Pass" project from exploration through financing, development, now under construction. And then at that time, it was, as you know, it was one big company with Brian Assets, as well, in Argentina. And then once we split "Backer Pass," I stayed with the Argentina group, where we've now brought that Calchariola's project from exploration all the way through to now the largest producer in Argentina. And we have another development project in the pipeline, as well, at the PPG project. So yeah, that's sort of my background. - So let me just reprise for the listeners, Harvard MIT Stanford. I said this when Tom was on episode 47, that he probably had the best academic pedigree of any podcast guest. And now, in episode 231, it's the same set of circumstances. I will not belabor it. Lack is gonna stay focused for probably the next better part of a decade on "Backer Pass," because there's a lot there. And as a guy who likes to look for Lithium, it made more sense for you to go with Lithium Argentina, catch us up on what you've been working on in the last five years. And what has recently been communicated publicly about Calchari? - Yeah, so when the split happened, it was a great time in the Lithium world. As you know, the prices were at all time highs. And the growth was, as you mentioned, probably limited at Lithium Americas. And Argentina was really where the new exploration was taking place. But then when the dust settled in the Lithium market took a turn, what we did actually was sort of what I'd been doing at Lithium Americas the whole time, was really focused on low-cost, academic level exploration techniques. So in the past few years, when we had to reign in spending, we went back and we did circus mapping, we worked with the University of Salta to generate brand new geologic maps of the region, we re-logged tens of thousands of meters of core, we collected a bunch of samples from the core that are called marker beds, where we then did a technique called geoconology, where we got to understand the ages of these rocks. And these are all very low-cost experiments, and things that we collaborated with local universities and students to do. And these aren't typical things that are done by most mining companies, but what they do is they basically, if you have a rock and you just look at the assay, you get information on how much Lithium is there. But if you do five other low-cost things, you can get five other data points and then start to build up this massive database of all different aspects of that one sample, which could then ultimately lead to improve results. So this is what we've been doing over the past several years in Argentina, we have an amazing team on the ground. By doing all this data, we've developed new conceptual geological models for Calchari and PPG. One of, and we're publishing that, it's under peer review now in a journal called Geology, where we've sort of identified that the basin's formed in the same time, even though they're separated by a massive volcano between which I won't get into the details of the volcanology, I'll spare that, your listeners that. But what was really great is that we've, because of this work and the dating and the rocks, we're able to define new places to explore. And as a result of that, we've now published giant new resources at PPG, which is over 22 million tons LCE. And we just this week published new results for Calchari Oloros with a giant increase in resource and measured and went up to 16.8 million tons alone. And the total is about, I believe, 38 million tons LCE. So we've really been able to use this conceptual geological framework, combined with additional drilling to really increase the resources without adding too much cost in doing so. So it's been a really great exciting time. - So give me the number again, the total. - So total MNI is now 28.1 million tons LCE. And inferred is 19.6 million tons of LCE. - So for the listener, when you start looking at a phase you want to catch RBI in 40,000 tons, phase 2, being 45,000 tons, and you divide that into millions. It's a pretty long life. - Yeah. - And I think you'll probably still be alive. I'll be long gone. And if you're doing NPVs, it has, the out years have no value no matter what discount rate you use. So the point is it's big. I think for my listeners, the ones that really want to get into the details can dig through the documents when they're online. But for the average guy, this is big and long lived. - Yeah, and what's exciting for me is being able to work on Thacker Pass, which is now the largest known 43, 101 compliant resource end-reserve in the world. With this new number at CalCherry, if you add up our new resource with the other projects in the basin, it's measured, indicated, and inferred is 74 million tons of LCE. And by comparison, by my latest count, what people think is the largest Solar in the world, Solar to Adekama is only 69 million tons of LCE. So now the CalCherry Oleros basin, which previously we thought to be two basins, but our new work that we're publishing shows that it's one big basin, then the middle of it is just covered by a recent Alluvial fan, is actually the largest lithium-bearing Solar in the world from the 43, 101 standpoint. - And that's the interesting part about all this, because lithium America is when it was one entity and during the bubble, had a stock price over 40 bucks and now the two companies, and at that time, and people that have listened to the last few episodes have heard me talk about this a little bit, but in 2022, when the stock price was over 40, Cachari wasn't producing, and Thacker Pass didn't have a path to production yet because they didn't have financing. Now Cachari's the largest producing asset in Argentina, and Thacker Pass, I was just there not too long ago, two weeks ago, is coming out of the ground pretty quickly and will be in operation by the end of next year. And yet, even with the turnaround in the market, you have the two stock prices up, depending on what they've done today, I haven't checked, but they're still less than 12, and they were in the dream sequence of 2022, but well over 40. Interesting times, not investing advice, but it doesn't take a rocket science to know there's a lot more value there. - And what, yeah, and I think the other important thing there is yes, with the largest operator in Argentina, but also we're at 90, near a full, 90 something, nameplate capacity, our costs, our lessons, 6000 a ton. We demonstrated that we can operate at a low cost through the toughest time in the market. And now we can focus on scalable growth. Not just at CalTRA where we just announced this massive new resource, but we have this new JV with Gampeng as well down in PPG, which is another 22 million tons where we're looking at really interesting opportunities to do scalable, sorry hybrid pond and DLE. We're looking at all these options to where what our scoping study contemplates is 150,000 tons per year over three stages there. So there's a lot of growth at low cost in the lithium Argentina umbrella, which is really exciting time to be, especially in the current market upswing. So when you were first on the podcast, from Hauui long, long ago, you were a newbie to the industry. Now you've got your hand prints, thumb prints, footprints, whatever prints you want to talk about on a very large chunk of the low cost production in this industry. And the reason we're talking and originally we're just going to talk about the next topic today. And then I decided, well, it's been a long time since you've been on the podcast. We might as well just record a podcast. We're going to talk about lithium Africa. So why don't we why don't we do that? And before you get started, let me just say that there's a lot of value in Tom's prior episodes where he gets into a granular detail on how lithium got where it is around the world associated with volcanic activities. This is the doctor of volcanoes. Episode 47 is only available right now on my website globalithiam.net backslash podcast. You can now listen to that or you can go back and listen to a second appearance where we also got into more of the granular detail. He talks about hot spots, cold spots, a lot of analogies. But if you aren't familiar with all this, it's a good primer of all lithium in the earth is associated with volcanic activities and less something's changed since the last time I talked to you. No, not to my knowledge. Okay. So let's talk about your I would say most recent focus. And that would be. So in addition to all the amazing work that we've been doing in Argentina, I've had the opportunity to become a geological advisor to another again thing joint venture called lithium Africa. Just went public a few weeks ago on the T6GB under L.A.F. and launched recent financing raising eight and half million Canadian. It's really exciting opportunity. And why Africa? Well, Africa is home to two of the largest two of the four largest spodging projects on earth. And yet, so it has seen maybe an a generous 10th of the world's exploration spend for lithium. If that I'm sure it's much less the geology is right. The resources are there and it's just a geostatistical exercise. It doesn't take a genius to know that there will be additional large scale discoveries on the continent. So in addition to the high potential that's there, it also is a very low cost jurisdiction. I know I'm lumping in a lot of countries there, but low cost of operation, low capital expenditures and relatively quick to to permits. So it's a really exciting jurisdiction. And why I think lithium Africa is uniquely suited to as this market goes in an upswing to look at this is during the past few years, lithium Africa we've spent time consolidating ground at very low cost throughout the continent in over six countries over 4500 square kilometers of highly prospective ground to de-risk the the exploration across major sections. And the key component is that it's a JV with GANFANG. GANFANG has 19.9% shareholder, but each project is a 5050 JV. And so by having GANFANG as our partner there, we basically, as you all know, have the best in the business in terms of understanding upstream, downstream, and what the customers want. And also provides assurance to any investors and anyone who may be interested in dealing with lithium Africa and either side of the aisle, this is the junior Africa play in lithium Africa. I believe from the deck I looked at on lithium Africa, the focus is not to get into downstream processing. It's to find new projects and bring them into production at a precursor level, I guess. Exactly. So you know, a lot of people call this the project generator strategy, you know, where you have multiple shots on that and that's essentially what it is. But it's really targeted. So we have a lot, we have a great team. We have a team that's focused on business development, and then also teams in-ger, stitches throughout Africa, including a couple offices in West Africa, Zimbabwe, and a new office in Cape Town. It's managed from different offices, which using local talent, local teams. And the main focus is to find the next school of media. We want to, with this new financing that we're just completing, drill three targets this year and define mineral resources at three separate targets, where we know their spogamine. And so that's the goal, is to really turn virgin ground into mineral resources and then monetize them to interested buyers, not interested at this moment to be a minor or producer of lithium, but really just to monetize assets and then using local teams and finding the next school of media or three. And just to put it in context on the gang fence side of this, gang fence historically has acquired resources. They have not been at the exploration stage outside. They acquired the interesting catchari. They acquired the interesting goal of media. So this is a little bit of going all the way back to the earth for for gang fence. Do you think that's a fair comment? Yeah, I think they know they how they spent hundreds of millions of dollars if not more to acquire gullamina, which is now under production. I think that's a, on another topic that one of the benefits of Africa is from the first lithium bralholes to production at gullamina is so fast like compared to how long have we known there's been giant spudging and pegmatizing Quebec. You know, that's what you refer to as no shots on goal, not multiple shots on goal. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, I think that's a that's a fair assessment. This is getting in at an early stage there and especially the past few years with consolidation ground. I'll give one example. We announced two weeks ago or so that we are acquiring a district scale land package in South Africa. We're calling the Springbok project. This is over 1,600 square kilometers of a pegmatite field in an arid region no soil cover pegmatized exposed on the surface. The deal is about 4 million US dollars and included in this deal to acquire the whole thing includes a 30,000 con scoff pile that's sitting on the surface already mined at 1.6 weight percent lithium. And if you just use a sigma lithium just sold 1 percent fine grain spudging at 140 dollars a ton. This is higher grade and larger crystals. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that this stock pile itself is well worth over what we paid for that. So in addition to the stock pile there's an active mining permit where there's a defined resource which is not optimized. But then there is in the course of we did 30 day due diligence. We found 30 new spudging and bearing pegmatized on the surface of the earth using some cool tech that I can get into later if we get there. But it just shows you for 4 million million dollars, you not only pay for it with the stuff pile, it lacks the value, then you acquire this whole district of spying on the payer peck and tights. That's as large as the Eastern Brazilian peck and tight province where you have 250 million tons of ore between sigma, PLS, atlas, ionic, CBL, and roughly the same size peck and tights. So it just shows you by doing this smart well-timed acquisition for four million dollars. You save a lot of money, that's sure how a lot lowered, so will significant figures lower than they not paid for Goulamina. Based on your stock pile comment, it didn't cost you anything. Exactly. It's a profit. Let me ask you why the sellers were willing, do they just not evaluate their own stock pile? That's kind of an obvious thing to price it in your stock. Well, when the deal terms were agreed upon, the price of lithium was a lot lower. So you've got to tail when you've got to price you don't have to turn around. Timeed it very well. It backs up the value, but it's a district scale peck and tights. That's what we're not going after a small stuff fell here. As you all know, and I think you're episode recently where you talked about with YGLE, where you talked about artisanal mining and the impact of that on the market in the future, that the small scale stuff may make a difference now, but in the future we need projects of scale. And so consolidating Graham now, doing the detailed exploration with the well-funded company with the great partner, we can take, we're setting up the opportunity to find multiple Goulamina projects of scale as the goal at least. Who are the non-gang friends, guys associated besides you would live in America? Because I don't know these guys. Exactly. So the chairman is Karl Esprit. He's a former BHP guy, Dilday out of Beisette, London. Now lives in Lisbon. Tyron Brittenbach, former core-mark analyst is the CEO. He's helped scope public through the as well as leading the financing with core-mark. But then I think the real strength, no offense to Tyron O'Carol lies in the teams, especially in West Africa. And we have Kulabali Mamadou, sorry, Citibi, the local geologists who are experts in West African geology, and the teams there that are based in Avagyan and Bamako have really spent day and day out on the ground, as well as our team in Zimbabwe, who's done a lot of the regional Zimbabwe as well as South Africa, D.D. work. And George, with that lead being D.G.ologist, Yerun, who's based out of the Netherlands, we've got to employ really cool modern techniques. And the teams have been very quick to adapt and bring new ideas to the table. And so the combination of you know, some lifting expertists, externals, sort of professor academics, as well as excellent a-tunnery geology teams, I think we've really been able to find the best ground. And with the with the team doing the deals, been able to get really good prices for this ground. Of course, the market really helps as well now. But yeah, so it's a great, great team that we put together. Is my buddy Tolu involved in this endeavor? Yes, So Tolu is on the board. He's the Dan thing member on the board. So, weekly calls with them, and again, thank team. There's a lot of synergies there, obviously, with we have Landon Mali, basically around Kodal and Gula Mena. And so there's a lot of synergies with the Dan thing team, there of course, as well as out of this in Broadway office. So yeah, they're very close to you with the Dan thing, Gios and Tolu as well. You got to have him on the podcast. Shout out to Tolu. Come on anytime he wants to. He knows where to find me. With the most specialized team of lithium-brime professionals in the world, Solandis is dedicated to providing exceptional customer service and support throughout every stage of lithium-brime field development and production. From the out of Comra to Ombre Mwerto to the USA and Canada, go to zalandis.com for more information that's zelandez.com. Let's talk about the, what I perceive is the lack of nuance when Africa is spoken of. Think you got a lot of different governments, you got a lot of different geographies involved. I think you may have mentioned there's maybe there's been lithium production in eight countries in Africa or is it nine, but when you look at Africa now, how do you decide where to focus? I think step one has to have the right ingredients to the lithium recipe. Right. So we're not going to look in, like say, Algeria or a place that you know that doesn't have the best theology. Second, for a project of scale. Second, you have to look at just the national risk and that can change as quickly as the seasons. For example, you know, we have projects in Mali when their insurgencies started to happen last year. We paused operations and they're still paused. Things are better now. Is it Guilamina and Bagoni, the cold old deposit, have been able to operate just fine. They weren't impacted. But from a safety standpoint, we paused operations there. And of course that we're about to start those up again, but of course that's a significant risk. So that's the second thing we go after. And third, we go after is infrastructure. I think is a key component. You have really big lithium deposits in the middle of the continent, such as the Manoto project. I know Zijian is working on building infrastructure there, but as it stands, we have to talk things, thousands of kilometers over very poor infrastructure for a junior maybe that doesn't quite make sense at this time. So I think a combination of those things and of course, I'll put a sustainability angle as well, which now it is as people don't care about, but lithium Africa certainly does. And then no gain thing does as well. You know, those are all important factors to consider. That's why I think a model like an exploration project generator with lithium Africa is excellent. And it's needed to be done in this type of diverse jurisdictional ecosystem because you diversify risk across those jurisdictions and have the ability, you're not a one trick pony, where we only hit assets in Mali, our share price would be in Toyota. So if we look at Manoto, I mean, this 10 years ago, it was the next big thing. And at the risk of irritating many of the original shareholders who still hold out hope of some help from on high to getting the asset back in their control, that's a massive asset in a place that's very challenging. Do you see that producing in the next five years? Yeah. I don't know if Manoto itself, well, it seems like it'll be embroiled in legal issues for a while. I don't think that cobalt announcement was, you know, how long ago and then as deep a pocket says any and they haven't been able to get it done. So clearly that specific land is a challenge, but I know Zijian is progressing on their their side of things and making progress there, building infrastructure and and you know, hydro plant and you know, things are going in the right direction there. There's a lot of perspective ground around the region that I think with added infrastructure may be exciting and potential, potential, but to the, you know, AVZ or slash cobalt project and the issues there on the licenses, I can't speak to, I don't know the details of the ongoing battle there, but it seems like eventually a little get done. It's just a question of, you know, you go to Africa to have speedy and part to have large scale speedy permitting and this seems to be antithetical to them. Yeah, I think that really just goes to the point that you can have a great resource, but there can be other factors that put it in the next big thing perpetually. Exactly. And so it's a question of where do you ask an exploration company or if you if we're looking towards development, you have the balance that with it is it 100 million ton project. Plus in a tough jurisdiction or if you can you develop a 50 million ton project in a much better jurisdiction. I think a good example of that is one of our projects is called adsope and cote de voir. It's on a paved road two hours from the port. The trucks that take spodge mean from. And we go to school, Amina and Molly go right by this and we've identified a 300 meter wide by 3 K plus long trend of anomalous lithium with spodge mean outcrops that we're drilling in a few weeks. And that's probably going to be tens of millions of tons. That's a poor looking statement that I can't. But you know, I think that's a good example of where you know a good balance between you know small scale artisanal and these mega projects that are no maybe in tupager, sections like Molly or DRC where you can accompany only for Latin Africa can really go after these 50 million or so cotton projects and can be easily monetized. Okay, let me ask the whole conceptual question a different way. What does success look like for lithium Africa in 2032. Give you give you plenty of time. It's 2026. You know, if I would say if we can define. We want to be drilling three times a year, three different projects. If let's have one of those hit 20 million ton plus resource every year. I'm optimistic here, but I think that we have a really interesting land package. Retirement in the market, right? And what's additionally interesting is with the stockpile, for example, at. At the spring box project in South Africa, we're looking we're talking to different vendors how we might want to sell it. We could sell it as raw or we could upgrade it with a single stage DMS to 6% spot. You mean in this if we if we if we if we time it right and we have the right partner. We could potentially use that to fund their drilling for the next three or four years and not dilute shareholders. So I think there's we can in addition to using cool methodologies that are. Using leveraging our real issue with campaign to try to understand exploration. We can also we have a wonderful portfolio with really great optionality ahead of us. The goal towards exploration and and get to 2032. Without diluting shareholders is possible. Let's talk about some of those methodologies. We've come up. I mean when you were on the first episode, we talked about the lithium ray gun, which. I think more than once you had trouble getting into various country. So what what has improved since you were on the first time. What technological changes are making your job faster and more effective. So I think it's a great tool to be able to make your job faster and more effective. Well, I view AI machine learning as a tool and the tool said and we use it on a daily basis. But machine learning is only as good as your input data. And what is your input data? And I alluded to this before you you you take a sample of rock and people typically say, let's asset it. We have our lithium content and that's it. But there's so many just fundamental basic geological things that you learn in geology 101. And undergrad, you can do XRD to see what minerals are in there. You can do geochronology like we've done in an Argentina. I understand the age of the rock or mineralization. You can like in fact, our past we looked at pollen content with a collaborator to understand the formation conditions of the clay there to know that it was under it was a reduced environment. And so there's so many different things you can do just by thinking outside the box. And then so by doing a combination of traditional techniques. With it was of course the English drilling, trenching soil samples, asset. But then you by doing all these other low cost techniques, you can then use all that data and plug it into a machine learning model. And get really cool results from it. Another good example of that is, you know, what we did in lithium Americas over COVID got in a truck and drove around it was it 20 something states throughout the US looking for basins that we found and states several new pieces of land ended up having 23 24 hundred ppm nothing like that. And so I don't know if I could pass, but what we did and this is a paper that we published last year in economic theology with Rachel Hampton who used to work at with in America's with me. We used all of that data that we collected and plugged it into machine learning algorithms and to do a predictive model for what are the key things that lead to a volcanic sedimentary resource. And so you can get the 3000 plus data points. You can't just say I'm good at that we collected with our hands and hammers. You can't just say, oh machine learning, we're going to use that to solve the problem. Another example of this is lithium Africa. We've over the past since mid year last year collected over 2000 samples across Africa of different minerals. We've collaborated our handheld guns handheld lives and XRF guns to those different minerals and been able to build a predictive algorithm using the samples we collected and sit to analysis to predict if a pegmatite has spodgamine. And that's how we're able to find 30 new pegmatites there with spodgamine and 30 days in South Africa by using this field data with analytical data combined with machine learning analysis to find where we can find spodgamine and it was like such a validating experience to do that. So there's these are examples of tools, other ones that people use are satellite imagery where they use remote sensing to say, oh there, I see an artisanal mine there and the signature from the satellite says it's XYZ. So let's look for XYZ elsewhere throughout Africa. But as you start getting more and more data, you can then combine it together in these using these algorithms, which is really excited. But of course, at the end of the day, you got a drill baby drill, nothing as if you want to increase share price. If you want to generate mineral resource, you have to drill. But it's all about, I think, doing front loading with a lot of low cost exploration to de-risk that drilling to ensure that every dollar you spend on drilling, you know exactly where, how deep you need to go, where you expect your ore body to be. And so you de-risk that and optimize that that drilling spent because that only have limited amount of cash. All right. Next question. You've been at this now for a while in our original episode, we talked about the fact that it looked like it was going to be really hard to get the million tons we'd need in 2025. And that's the first episode you were on. As it turned out, 2025 was more like a million five. And there was over supply at the beginning of the year because high prices enabled the Lapidolite to come on. It enabled a lot of activity in Africa. And some of that activity is things that I believe you weren't really thrilled with is somebody who is very sensitive about environmentally responsible development of lithium assets. Long preamble, but the question is, as we sit here today and now 2030 looks more like four and a half, not three in 2035 could be six million tons. Do you think the quote unquote low hanging fruit has all been found? And now it's just gets harder and harder or some of these new techniques enable you to find. And then we have another green bushes, another cacci, another name your great asset. little bit. In terms of what I think will make a difference is we need to get projects of scale online. I remember I was in an unnamed jurisdiction in Africa a few years ago and visiting a few projects where there's some artisanal mining going on and then trying, it was at the height of the lithium prices and Chinese buyers were coming in and by the dozens it seemed and doing a quick visual inspection of what they had and then leave or buy or leave. Then the price went down, no more buyers came around and the locals were left in the lurch. And so that is not how sustainable mining should work in any sense of the word and it's not how we're going to reach these numbers that we plan on. So how can we reach that? I think we need to have scalable low-cost resources and where is that going forward? It's Brian's and Argentinian and Chile and it's Spadjamine and low-cost jurisdictions. Maybe you have some satellite pits and existing operations in Australia that will come online and help this but if you look where those low-cost jurisdictions are, I don't think it's going to be in the US or Canada or Europe. It might be in Asia but it's going to be in Africa. So there will be, I don't, you can't stop artisanal mining from happening. Zimbabwe is doing its best to do it with regulations like that but where I think we really have the focus is where we develop projects of scale and low-cost jurisdictions in a sustainable manner and that's what's going to ultimately be able to weather any sort of market and last through 2040 to meet this demand. So if I'm understanding you, you're basically saying you're looking for reasonable scale and reasonable cost. Exactly. One of the main cost drivers is also infrastructure in Tracay, like getting the ore to pork is going to be a huge part of that so that's another big consideration as well. So geopolitically, what Africa is doing is continuing to enable China because all the excess conversion capacity. There literally is not any meaningful conversion capacity outside of China for hard rock and that's not taking a dig at Tesla's converter which I don't have any idea whether that's going to work or not. We'll see soon enough. I talked about that on the last episode a little bit. You've got some conversion capacity in Korea but China's got that playbook pretty well written. They can replicate conversion capacity. So on that access geopolitically, Africa is really China's game. Yeah, unless other players get in the game. I think one of the, you can get midstream potentially, you know, there's some lithium sulfate plants going up in Zimbabwe, right? And within it, it was building those. But there's opportunity there. Look at Morocco, for example, Chinese people are looking there, Westerners are looking there, and the Middle East will maybe not now, but capacity conversion capacity there is an option. I think the biggest issue in a place like Africa will be power. However, with a partner like Ganttang who is really developing the solar plus energy storage batteries, you know, that could change the game in terms of power throughout Africa in general, but also for processing of mineral resources. So yeah, we keep saying China, China. Well, don't, don't, I'm not making a value judgment on this, but when you start talking about if it's going to be solar power, it's going to be that's team China as well. My point being that you really seem to have devolved this into the rest of the world is going to rely on Brian, because you're making chemicals for the most part at the point where you develop the Brian. The current model in the hard rock world is you either make concentrate, take it as DSO, maybe do some midstream, and then that goes to China. I don't see that changing in the next decade. It's just an interesting thought that in the current geopolitical environment, Brian becomes the West's only play. Yeah, I mean, then you think of our projects in Argentina, which are joint ventures with Ganttang, you know, it's not a. I'm not saying that. I'm not saying China is not involved in Brian, but I'm saying that if you're in the West, for example, if you take the smackover, that won't be low cost, but it'll be a reasonable cost if the DLE works as predicated. This episode is also brought to you by MLC, whether you need technical support for engineering or setting up equipment for effective use of lime, MLC is your solutions partner. Visit lime4lithium.com to learn more. That's L-I-M-E, the number four, L-I-T-H-I-U-M.com. I haven't asked you a specific question about how you feel about the quality of the Brian in the smackover, but if you want to take that one on, I'm happy to. Well, I'll say that, you know, that been through a lot of uncertainty with the ThackerPass project. There's new technology that we have to prove, Benchtop, then at our pilot plant, and now, you know, it still will be. remains to be tested at scale, which is being built now, but that will go through. It has the funding, it is done. I think a good example of where I, see, I've studied geothermal systems before, is the geothermal nasty fluids that are acidic of all these heavy metals and that. Remember, during the Biden years that was hailed as the saving grace, and we don't hear anything about them now. Are you not right about the CTR's back? No. 4.7 billion dollar valuation. In my mind, probably the joke of all lithium jokes. When ThackerPass, when I looked or lack, when I looked this morning, I had a valuation of a little under 1.5 billion market cap, and this CTR announcement, and I haven't read all the details, but spacking it at work points has been billion. And again, I don't know all that's in there. I probably shouldn't go too far down that road, but I don't believe CTR ever produces lithium from the salt and sea at scale. And I've been saying that for a long time, and if I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but they've been at it for a while. Yeah, and I don't need to do a dig at that. And of course, if the technology works and it's cost effective to do it, that's great. We need the supply. The US needs that supply. And it goes back to your question of where the smackover and like, where can we have if the goal is non-Chinese, lithium that's not touched by the Chinese. I don't think that's a broad realistic goal. I think if you're talking about just defense needs, and you want to, the government wants to subsidize that, you can have China free production of a modest amount of batteries. But I live in the real world. And when you're talking about the original question being, how do you get to maybe six million tons, nine years from now? And you got to hit a lot of singles and doubles to change the analogy from hockey to baseball to come anywhere close to that number. Lithium Africa and companies like Lithium Africa have to do a lot of work. Because even if the smackover is successful, 20 years ago, people thought you didn't need anything but the out of comma, and maybe green bushes. Now if you add those two together, they're not a big percentage of the mid-2030s supply. Tom Benson, you got a lot of work to do, buddy. Yeah, and I think once again, it speaks to And honestly, of course, within the Ganteng ecosystem, in many ways, but it speaks to how pressure South-San and Mr. Lee and the whole team has been and identifying projects of scale. They have their hands in Calchari, PPG, Goulamina, the Australian ones, they have other projects out of the world and they're doing this lithium-aprica exploration. They recognize the need to find projects of scale at low cost. And as you mentioned, even this smackover comes on and the DLE tech improves there. We still need all the lithium we can get. And I think that the focus for juniors needs and early stage producers needs to be on these lower cost operations because you don't wanna be stuck in permitting purgatory in Canada. Or you're even worse, you're up. - Yeah, I think permitting purgatory, I think you, as a Catholic, I get the purgatory thing. But I'm using that. I will attribute it to you. It's like attributing lithium-winner to Dale Henderson. I always try to give credit where credit is due, but I think permitting purgatory sounds right. I am just hoping that what you're trying to do with lithium-aprica is successful and is successful in a way that there are on a lot of nine year olds involved in artisanal lithium because it no longer. happens, but that's a hope. But anyway, I mean, I can remember your first episode, you talked about a chipmunk that your parents used to read you this book when you were a kid. I can't remember the name of the chipmunk. If I think I got that right. (laughing) It was, it's nice to be nice. - It's nice to be nice. - Yeah. - Exactly. - All right, well, we're coming up on an hour. So, what did I miss or you wanna ask me anything? Or. - I guess we can't let it be five years before you're on again. - Right, exactly. Well, you know, as they get more involved in Africa, I think it's, as you mentioned, people speak about it in generalities, if that's the right word. - Yeah. - What needs to be done as a young company in Africa to communicate to the community, to investors, to strategic partners, in order for Africa to become, you know, it's so rich in lithium, rich in talent, rich in, and in so many things and it lacks in other things. Well, how can the market rely on Africa and what needs to be done as a company working in Africa to improve the outlook there? - Well, I think what you're doing is a start. And I think that communicating that you actually are doing what you're doing in a manner that represents the interest of the country, the citizens of each country that you're not, I mean, let's just lay it out. I mean, China did a lot of bad things in 2022, in 2023, you know, when, and you, as you said, price went down and all those guys disappeared. And that's human nature. I think showing step by step and communicating what you're doing in an effective manner that you are trying to do this responsibly. And there's always gonna be cynics. In any time, a Chinese company's involved and I've always defended Gang-Fen from the standpoint of I've dealt with those guys for a quarter of a century. And having lived in China, having dealt with a lot of different entities in China, I know how it goes. And it was always, Gang-Fen was always one of the companies that took a very pragmatic attitude about, I think Shaoxin coined the phrase, globalization by localization. And you can do that in an exploitive manner, you can do it in a fair and equitable manner. And I think you, when you look at Africa, it's been done the wrong way so many times that you're fighting the tide in communicating that you're doing it the right way. But you have to start somewhere. - Do you see, you know, 'cause you've been in this industry for 30 plus years, only 10. Do you see, say, an analog, like recently, is Argentina 10 years ago an analog potentially to what Africa is today in terms of a new frontier of lithium or do you see it in similar analogs? - Because I was selling Argentina lithium in the '90s, I think the attitude towards Argentina was very similar. That, I mean, there's a lot of people that thought Argentina is still do, that Argentina's a third world country. And if you go back historically, Argentina's got a very proud history of being a first world country. They've had a lot of economic chaos over the decades. And I've seen that in my time there, but I've always been a big supporter of Argentina. I do think that from the standpoint of, there's a huge amount of lithium in Argentina, there's a huge amount of lithium in Africa. I think it's a workable analogy. I don't think it's a perfect analogy. - Yeah, and I think, yeah, it's a build on to that. I think the people may have these misconceptions about Africa's or Black Conceptions. But think of what percent of the world's gold is mined in Africa? Diamonds like copper, like the Africa, like think of South Africa alone. Such an amazing talent pool and history of mining and it has its issues of course, but such a great jurisdiction to work in. A lot more mining friendly than maybe in the Western hemisphere. It's like it's all about perception, I think. And I grew up, my uncle, Joe Lowry, ran Pepsi Cola in Africa in the 1950s and early 60s. And he became a Catholic priest because he said, I couldn't live with the fact that I was selling sugar water to people that were spending a buck of their $3 a month income on sugar water. So I grew up with some sense of the potential of Africa, but also the dark side, not a term of people are gonna like me having just used, but that's the best analogy I have is that. I grew up with tales of Africa from my uncle. I didn't visit Africa till I was in my mid 30s I guess. But the world's changing pretty fast and there are a lot of smart people in Africa and the guy who got my beautiful lithium plan I was responsible for in China grew up in Nigeria. So I have an open mind about that, but I also know that the Western prejudice is die hard. - Yeah, it's true. And there is lithium production at scale in Africa. Like last year, what was the estimated production out of there 250,000 tons of lithium? Like really a big truck of the market. Lithium's coming out, Gulemina, Sandawana, and then other smaller operations. And the lithium's there. It's just a question of who's gonna go and get it in a responsible way empowering the locals building in the structure and helping to meet the demand. - Well, I've said this a hundred times, but the corning where I grew up with in most United States homes grew up with, that was run of mine batch from Rhodesia originally. It had a little bit of lithium in it. So that, I mean, that original lithium mind is older than I am. So it's kind of what comes around, goes around. Anyway, I am going to say we need to do this again sooner rather than later. And maybe we got into a little more pontification than I would normally like, but that's okay. But I do have a couple of rapid fire questions for you. - I'm ready. - What's your favorite geological term? - De-virtual vacation. - In the last changes into other minerals such as quartz, they're alkaline-felds, but. - You know, I always found that word that glasses of liquid. - No crystal structure. - I'm told you, it's justified. - Okay, so this is a serious question. And it was one that I've already asked you, at least part one of it. I don't know. prior episode. When they make the first question was the lithium America's movie. Now it's the lithium Argentina movie. When they make the lithium Argentina movie, who plays Alec Mico? We already know Shalamet plays you. Who plays Alec Mico? Oh, that's a good question. I wish I knew actors better. Maybe Shalamet has a dual role. He plays you. Yeah, look, look, we're both young, right? I think Alex the William better than me. I don't think he's much younger than you. Yeah. All right. I try to think someone who's a blonde hair actor, but I'm Ryan Gosling, right? There you go. Okay. Who plays, and this question's been asked before, not to you? Who plays Kelly O'Brien? Let's go with Scarlet Johansson. I think that was the last answer. Okay, final question. Who plays John Cannelliets'es? Well, good one. It's to be a. I say Chevy Chase. Yeah. All right. With that, we will bring episode 231 to a close. Thanks for your time, Tom. I'm sure your fan base will be happy to have you back on. It was too long since the last solo episode. Thanks for having me, Joe. I appreciate it. I always enjoy catching up with Tom. He has a very agile mind, and he looks at the world of lithium from a different lens than I do. So it's always a learning experience, getting his perspective. And I promise you, his next appearance will be within the next 12 months. Despite all the uncertainty with what's going on in the Middle East, I can say with surety that some of the largest consumers of lithium in the world are reaching out and seem to be feeling a desperation that I don't remember since 2022. My point is that major buyers, and I'm talking about Chinese entities at this point, are not feeling the power is in their hands right now. And I won't say any more than that. I may say more than coming days, but it's very good news for lithium producers. You've also seen some deals made that some financing done, Rio Tino, getting alone for Winkon, the curious SPAC. I don't want to insult anybody that works for CTR. I know there are good people that work for all these lithium companies. I am not a fan. I never have been, I know, tough. It's going to be to produce lithium in the salt and sea. And I'm not sure anybody's ever going to do it at scale. But having a SPAC, it a relative value of four times what lithium Argentina's market cap is today makes literally no sense to me. It's over three times what lacks market cap is. So I again don't want to insult anybody, but to me that just makes absolutely no sense. Thanks again for listening.