Instead, it is battery metals that are drawing investor attention as electric vehicles threaten to completely rearrange the balance of power in the mining industry.
But when we start shopping around for some way to put our money into lithium—the tight-supply darling of this new balance of power—it’s hard to find the right small-cap play that will end up being a multi-bagger.
It’s a crowded playing field.
We want a small-cap with big ideas, a working plan already in place, strong prospects, unique advanced tech that no one else has, and exactly the right people.
We found ‘Burba’s Brine’.
‘Burba’ is a reference to John Burba—the genius in the lithium space who co-invented one of the most unique lithium extraction technologies for giant miner FMC. Now, he’s the CEO of International Battery Metals, which now holds the even more advanced version of this proprietary technology.
‘Brine’ is a reference to where most of the lithium is. And brine deposits are estimated to contain 66 percent of the world’s 14 million metric tonnes (MT) of Lithium.
IBAT ticks all of our pure-play lithium boxes:
It has Burba, the lithium legend.
It has a new, proprietary technology that can extract lithium faster than anything else on the planet.
It has mobility: Yes, the tech can be moved around from brine to brine, just like that.
It has a guaranteed market because all of these giant EV and battery players can’t come close to keeping their production capacity without a lot more lithium.
Make no mistake, this isn’t an exploration game. It’s an innovation game, and IBAT is leading the pack.
Here are 5 more reasons to take a further look at IBAT
#1 – Before Burba Came Along …
Everyone thought lithium extraction was limited to a small number of brines. They also thought it should take up to 24 months to extract.
Burba changed the rules of the game by pioneering a new technology that can turn months into … hours.
It’s not solar evaporation, the cumbersome process that takes two years to see results. Solar evaporation requires extracting every single element from the brine until only lithium remains. Hence the painstakingly long process.
IBAT’s technology targets the lithium directly, extracting the new precious metal and leaving everything else behind. In other words, it’s the old process, in reverse.
Burba co-invented the first version of this technology decades ago. FMC—one of the world’s top four lithium producers—has been using it for 20 years. His invention even led to the label “FMC-grade” carbonate because it’s the purest in the world.
But that was 20 years ago. And Burba didn’t stop there. The original technology has been advanced further—with a Burba twist. And the new technology has the potential to reshape lithium like fracking reshaped American oil.
#2 – Tesla Thinks So, Too
Nothing speaks to us more than a multi-million-dollar nod from the ‘Iron Man’ of our time: Elon Musk.
The Tesla genius knows Burba’s work well. In fact, Musk offered $325 million for Burba’s earlier start-up, Simbol. Musk called it a “compelling opportunity to combine two innovative companies on a mission to advance clean and sustainable energy technologies worldwide.”
It wasn’t a high enough price tag for Simbol, though, and Burba took his knowledge elsewhere—to Selective Absorption Lithium, which has a share exchange agreement with IBAT. Burba is the incoming CEO and Chair of IBAT, maintaining control of even more advanced patent pending lithium extraction technology.
#3 – No Other Small-Cap Can Produce Lithium in Time
Timing is critical when we’re talking about lithium, and IBAT’s technology can extract lithium in 24 hours—not 24 months. This means more efficient operations and a much smaller environmental footprint.
While some small-cap resource companies have made similar claims, based on small scale laboratory tests, none are basing their claims on technology that has been commercially proven. The technology that IBAT is bringing to the table is a vastly improved version of the technology that Burba and his partner sold to FMC, which became the basis of FMC’s lithium production process. FMC’s lithium extraction plant has continuously operated with this technology for 20 years.
Lithium shortage fears first emerged about two years ago, causing a tripling in lithium prices in only 10 months. Suddenly it occurred to everyone that the electric vehicle boom had crept up on them stealthily. Then EVs started hitting the mainstream market, and the race to build battery gigafactories to support them was on in full force. Today, the fear is that much greater.
We simply don’t have enough lithium mining operations online to feed this revolution. EV production is set to increase more than thirtyfold by 2030, according to Bloomberg.
