Montreal, Quebec – May 16, 2022 ‑ Lomiko Metals Inc. (TSX.V: LMR) (“Lomiko Metals” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce an update on its strategy to further advance its regional exploration opportunities in the Grenville graphite belt with the objective of developing a sustainable and long-term natural flake graphite resource base that can feed into the graphite market at large, and the regional market for electric vehicles battery manufacturing.
Lomiko believes that early-stage development of this strategy, combined with a current emphasis on metallurgical testing of its flake graphite at La Loutre and a committed vision to work with the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg (“KZA”) First Nation and local communities is important to becoming a leader and operator of choice in the region. At the same time, the Company is looking at opportunities in the carbon offset market and carbon neutral mine planning. Carbon offset projects include forestry, conservation, renewable energy and community projects where every tonne of emissions reduced by an environmental project creates one carbon offset or carbon credit.
Belinda Labatte, CEO and director of Lomiko stated: “Our team is keen to take on new opportunities in the region, around our La Loutre property, as we develop the potential for natural flake graphite via organic growth and acquisition. We plan to lead the responsible development of regional graphite assets with community and First Nations engagement, water management and stewardship initiatives, and carbon offset projects that further advance our carbon-neutral model of graphite development.”
The Company has staked approximately 14,255 hectares of mineral claims, 236 claims in total, on six projects in the Laurentian region of Quebec and within First Nations territory. These new claims lie within a 100 km radius of the Company’s flagship La Loutre graphite project and 28 claims are directly contiguous to La Loutre, with the Company claim package now covering 4,528 hectares. The highest graphite grades are commonly associated with rock contacts between marble and paragneiss or quartzite which is the host rock present in the Grenville Province and at La Loutre. Large, disseminated natural flake graphite mineralization occurs at a number of places in the Grenville Province metamorphic belt, located in Canada’s Quebec and southeastern Ontario jurisdictions, and the conglomeration of this mineralization in close proximity in the region presents opportunities in the future for responsible and low impact mining or quarry activities that are unique to this region.
This regional exploration program will cover numerous under-explored graphite showings primarily occurring within paragneiss units of the Grenville geological belt. The claims staked are largely accessible and situated close to road access and qualify as early-stage greenfield exploration. Lomiko intends to initiate exploration of these prospective graphite targets with high definition airborne magnetic, and time-domain electromagnetic surveys. This work will be followed by geological, prospecting, and sampling surveys based on ground targets generated by the airborne surveys. Lomiko will engage with communities and the KZA as this work evolves. Please refer to Figure 1 for details.
Corporate development update
The Company continues to review other prospects for eventual acquisition. Lomiko’s strategy is to create scale and a regional approach for the exploration and development of natural flake graphite as an operator of choice and this will include carbon neutral mine planning and potential for carbon offset projects. This strategy would serve to provide a long-term, sustainable and responsible solution to provide flake graphite, and ultimately anode-grade graphite, into the electric vehicle supply chain.
Investor conferences
All interested investors are encouraged to meet with management in person at the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference (VRIC) taking place in Vancouver on May 17th and 18th, and at PDAC in Toronto from June 13th to 15th. Also, management will be presenting at The Northern Miner’s virtual Global Mining Symposium on May 25th. More information is available on the Company’s website at www.lomiko.com.