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The Great Salt Lake in Utah is one of a number of large concentrated brine sources in the Western US. (Source)

MGX Minerals Inc. may have set its sights set on something very big in the Western United States. The announcement came today that the company has engaged Hatch Ltd. for engineering advisory services for the scale-up of MGX’s rapid lithium extraction technology. The large-scale application of this technology presents one potential solution for the US lithium supply problem. Lithium was recently added to the strategic materials list by the US Government sending a clear message that the US intends to vastly increase its domestic lithium supply. 

Although only few details have been released, there exist very large potential resources in California, Utah and Nevada. MGX has business development or exploration activity at this time in all 3 US States, which may be the target of a large-scale version of its technology. MGX has manufactured 5-10 cubic meter per hour systems as well as designed and begun initial manufacture of 50-100 cubic meter per hour systems, so if MGX is scaling up based on the past, it looks like MGX may have engaged Hatch to go after another 10x on scale-up to 1000 cubic meters per hour.

In Utah, MGX holds oil and lithium assets spanning over 100,000 acres and is set for 3D seismics within weeks. In August 2017, MGX reported one of the largest initial oil estimates in US history at the Paradox Basin, where MGX is targeting lithium brine associated with oil and gas.

In Nevada, MGX last week announced mobilization for drilling at Kibby Basin, 50 km north of the only US lithium producer, Abermarle’s Silver Peak Mine.

In California, MGX has engaged former California Senate Majority Leader Richard Polanco as an advisor and consultant to the company as well as Randall W. Keller as Vice President of Business Development, who previously worked as Director of Business Development, Transmission & Land Assets with a focus on geothermal units for Berkshire Hathaway Energy Renewables. In November 2017, MGX and engineering partner PurLucid developed a novel filtration technology for the purification of high temperature geothermal brines and the associated extraction targeting the geothermal market for extraction of lithium and other metals. 

Hatch has considerable engineering expertise in the lithium business and is an expert in speciality metals. Whatever the project may be that is behind today’s news, MGX intends to scale-up its technology big time. Considering the actual US tariff situation with lithium deemed critical to the economic and national security of the US, it appears MGX has focussed on the large-scale deployment of its rapid extraction technology in the US.   

Technical Perspective

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Company Details

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MGX Minerals Inc.
#303 - 1080 Howe Street
Vancouver, BC, Canada V6C 2T1
Phone: +1 604 681 7735 
Email: jared@mgxminerals.com
www.mgxminerals.com

Shares Issued & Outstanding: 122,655,926

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Chart

Canadian Symbol (CSE): XMG
Current Price: $0.85 CAD (07/31/2018)
Market Capitalization: $104 Million CAD

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