April 25, 2022
Summary
Ameriwest Lithium Inc. is a Canadian-based exploration company with a focus on identifying strategic lithium mineral resource projects for exploration and development. The Company is currently focused on exploring its 13,580-acre Railroad Valley property, the 22,210-acre Edwards Creek Valley, and the 5,600-acre Deer Musk East property in Nevada. In addition, the Company is exploring the 2,860-acre Thompson Valley property in Arizona.
Stock Chart
Share Structure
Shares Issued and Outstanding (As of June 16, 2021): 38,790,000
Warrants: May 2021 private placement: 12,083,000
Finders: May 2021 private placement: 261,450
Warrants: Feb 2021 private placement: 6,250,000
Options outstanding (Form 11 Apr 30/21): 1,400,000
Agents Warrants (Expire Jul 23/22*) 396,000
(* As noted in Jan 31, 2021 interim financial statements)
Reserved for Issuance: 29,390,450
Investment Highlights
- The Suez Canal bottleneck in March, 2021 highlighted the fragility of global oil supply and need for supply chain access and alternative energy sources.
- Today’s lithium market is roughly 350,000 tonnes and forecast to grow to roughly to one million tonnes in size by 2025, the capital to feed this growth in the supply chain needs to be raised and invested today — not in two or three years. (source: northernminer.com)
- Decarbonization has become the polarizing trend ensuring 2021 is a pivotal year despite the pandemic.
- The key to Energy Transition: security of supply of raw materials, in particular high-purity lithium. The oversupply of lithium, which characterized the market in 2018-2019, is coming to an end, and investors are driving share prices higher.
- The market is scrambling to identify quality lithium resources as governments work to develop homegrown lithium supply chains and develop subsidy programs.
- Not all lithium is equal and developing domestic low-cost sustainable supply chains is a key market driver. Electric vehicles (EVs) require high purity lithium chemicals while ceramics and lubricants can use lower purities. Lithium prices are rising and have room to gain momentum as EV sales continue to grow.
- Human innovation and capital availability are evident throughout the sector. Notable capital has been recently raised with Albemarle (US$27.5 billion); SQM (US$15.9 billion); Lithium Americas (US$3.6 billion); Piedmont Lithium (US$1.1 billion); Vulcan Resources (US$1.26 billion); and Sigma Lithium (US$1.1 billion) as evidence of a growing resurgence in the lithium sector.
Projects
Located in the US Southwest including Nevada’s Clayton Valley, Edwards Creek & Railroad Valleys and in central Arizona’s Thompson Valley
- RIGHT INDUSTRY, RIGHT TIME: Increase in adoption and production of battery powered vehicles is driving demand for lithium with this demand set to increase 23%-33% year-on-year.
- PROVEN LITHIUM JURISDICTIONS: Ameriwest’s lithium properties are located within areas of known lithium resources, with our Deer Musk East project located within 5 miles of the only lithium producing mine in North America.
- STRONG SHARE CAPITAL STRUCTURE & WELL FINANCED: Attractive share structure and well financed to achieve our initial exploration objectives, with continued focus on capital efficiency and risk mitigation.
- EXPERIENCED MANAGEMENT: A team with substantial experience in finance & mining, and with prior experience in developing mining projects from grass-roots to divesture, to major mining companies.
Management Profiles
David Watkinson CEO
Mr. Watkinson brings over 30 years of professional engineering experience in underground and open pit mining projects, including mine permitting, engineering, feasibility, construction, and operations for Emgold Mining Corporation. In addition to EMGold, Mr. Watkinson has extensive experience in project management, having taken projects from grass roots start-up levels, to successful operating status. Mr. Watkinson has been responsible for management of large capital projects and operations in Canada, the United States and the Philippines. He has held numerous senior positions including but not limited to, Placer Dome Inc., Kinross Gold Corporation, Thyssen Mining Construction and Vulcan Materials Company.
Mr. Watkinson holds a B.Sc. in Applied Science, Mining Engineering, from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario (1985) and is a Registered Professional Engineer in the Province of Ontario.
Glenn Collick COO & Director
Mr. Collick is an entrepreneur who brings a wide range of experience and knowledge to the Company. In 1983, Mr. Collick served as an Investment Advisor which led him to an extensive interest in the mining industry that has continued to the present. He has been involved in numerous mining ventures including the Voisey’s Bay area discovery, by staking several hundred square kilometers for numerous public companies, and had an instrumental role in several mineral exploration projects in Argentina, Mexico and Canada.
Mr. Collick has substantial experience in the renewable energy sector, with Greenwind Power Corp., where he was responsible for assessing them for their wind energy potential. Mr. Collick’s interest in renewable energy also extends to biofuels, where he established a start-up company that was awarded a significant grant from the Province of Alberta to design and build a biofuel reactor using canola as feed stock.
For four years, Mr. Collick served as the Chief Relationships Officer of Atrum Coal NL, on the Australian Stock Exchange that was responsible for the Groundhog Coal Discovery in Northern British Columbia. His responsibilities included consulting with the government, the First Nations and other direct and indirect stakeholders in the project, and was specifically responsible for developing a positive working relationship between Atrum and the First Nations stakeholders.
Graeme Wright CFO
Mr. Wright has over 35 years of financial management, consulting and accounting experience involving a wide range of industries. Mr. Wright has held Vice President of Finance and Administration positions in various Vancouver-based technology companies, one of which, Healthpricer Interactive Limited, was a publicly traded company. Mr. Wright’s contribution was critical to the and sale of Healthpricer and the spin out and privatization of its operating subsidiary.
Mr. Wright graduated from the University of Toronto with a bachelor’s degree in commerce, majoring in Accounting and Economics, and received his initial training at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Zig Hancyk, PhD Director
Dr. Hancyk is an experienced senior executive, former CEO and management consultant who has worked with a wide variety of clients in Canada, the US and globally. He specializes in strategic planning and project management for companies and government organizations. He was named CEO of the year by the Vancouver Island Advanced Technology Centre. His former roles include serving as Director at Telus, CEO Paretologic, Operations Advisor for Export Development Canada, and Director of the MBA Management Consulting Programs at Royal Roads and the University of Victoria.
He has extensive governance experience in both profit and non-profit sectors. In addition to being a Board member of some high-tech companies he was also on the Board of Governors at Ryerson University in Toronto, the Vice Chair of the Co-operative Education Program Advisory Council at the University of Victoria and was on the Academic Planning Board of the Technical University of British Columbia (now part of Simon Fraser University). Dr. Hancyk was the Chair of the Vancouver Island Chapter of the Canadian Association of Management Consultants and a Board Member of the Information and Communications Technology Council in Ottawa. He also served on the Academy for Technology CEOs in Vancouver, the Industrial Training and Apprenticeship Commission of BC, and the Saanich’s Governance Advisory Committee.
He holds a PhD in Business Administration with a specialization in Strategic Planning from Capella University in Minneapolis and a Master of Business Administration degree from the John Molson School of Business at Concordia University in Montreal. He is also a Certified Management Consultant (CMC). He qualified as a Certified General Accountant (CGA) in BC in 1990. He taught MBA courses as an adjunct professor at the University of Ottawa, the University of Victoria, and Royal Roads University.
Sam Eskandari Director
Mr. Eskandari has extensive experience in marketing and operational management for public companies including budgeting, raising capital and developing and executing successful growth strategies. His professional experience spans various industries including pharmaceuticals, retail, mining, and technology.
Prior to his career in marketing and management, Mr. Eskandari was the General Manager of one of the flagship stores of Future Shop/Best Buy in Western Canada, where he implemented a successful marketing and sales program resulting in the highest sales growth in a key period within all stores in Western Canada. Mr. Eskandari is a graduate of Simon Fraser University (SFU) with a degree in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry. Mr. Eskandari has also been on the board of various public companies in mining sector and as a serial entrepreneur, he has been a founder and/or cofounder of multiple companies over the past ten years. He is currently a Director and Interim CFO of Oakley Ventures Inc.
James Gheyle Director
Mr. Gheyle began his career in the mineral exploration industry over 25 years ago and has held a number of positions with various exploration-stage companies and possesses extensive experience in the sector, having worked on a variety of projects including base metals, gold and diamond exploration with companies like BHP
and De Beers.
In the early 2000s, Mr. Gheyle gained extensive experience in the oil and gas industry in Fort McMurray, where he was employed by Red River Energy Consultants and was contracted out to a number of major oil companies. Over his tenure in the oil and gas industry, Mr. Gheyle held numerous positions including drilling consultant and project manager, while serving as part of the management team that supervised large drilling programs in the Fort McMurray area. In 2019, he began consulting for junior mineral exploration companies. Mr. Gheyle holds a diploma in Applied Science – Geology, from BCIT (British Columbia (1997).
Dennis Bryan, P.E. Advisor
Mr. Bryan is a registered professional geological engineer in Nevada and for much of his career he was either an owner or manager of various consulting and geotechnical engineering firms. He previously served as a Commissioner on the State of Nevada Commission on Mineral Resources from 2000 to 2019, representing Nevada’s small miner interests including that of the industrial minerals and aggregate industries.
He further served for ten years as Senior Vice President of Development for Lithium Nevada Corporation (previously Western Lithium Corporation), a junior mining company that is a wholly owned subsidiary of Lithium Americas Corporation. Lithium Nevada is developing one of the world’s largest known lithium deposits, a hectorite clay, located in northern Nevada. Lithium America also has a lithium brine resource in Argentina which is shortly planned to go into production. Another wholly owned subsidiary is ReoMinerals that manufactures organoclays utilizing hectorite from a property in Northern Nevada and other specialty clays from the western US. Mr. Bryan managed Nevada operations, including permitting, water rights, public relations for the company, and an extensive exploration drilling program that extended a portion of the historical lithium resource into a reserve to supply a proposed 20,000 tons per year lithium carbonate production facility.
He has found and worked on the development of several aggregate resources in the Western U.S., and at one time was a co-owner of a lightweight aggregate operation he discovered in Arizona. Other industrial mineral commodities with which he has done exploration and development work include cement raw materials, diatomite, perlite, pozzolan, gypsum, clays, limestone, dimension stone, pumice, and silica sand. He earned his B.S., Geological Engineering, at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, 1970, and M.S., Geology, at Mackay School of Mines, University of Nevada, Reno, 1972.
James Ingraffia Advisor
Mr. Ingraffia’s previous geological experience includes various roles at Lithium Americas Corp., Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology and with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). He is the founder of Lithium Arrow LLC, a consulting company focused on the development and advancement of grassroots lithium brine discoveries. Mr. Ingraffia has a Master of Science degree in Geology from the University of Nevada (Reno) with a specific focus on lithium exploration.
Greg Bell Advisor
Mr. Bell is a multi-disciplinary engineering management professional with more than 30 years experience in the natural resources sector. Previously, Mr. Bell analyzed lithium oil-field brine potential of the Bashaw property in central Alberta for Fathom Nickel prior to it becoming part of E3 Metals Clearwater Project. He has also explored for lithium and cobalt deposits in many parts of the western U.S. He has successfully built and managed several start-up operations in various capacities as project engineer, project manager, chief technology officer, president or managing member. Mr. Bell has B.S. and M.S. degrees in Chemical Engineering from the Universities of Colorado and Wyoming. He is a Professional Engineer registered in the states of Arizona and Utah and is a Certified Groundwater Professional recognized by the National Groundwater Association.