What do your operations consist of and which investor categories are supporting them?
Tantalex is focused on exploring and developing critical metals, namely lithium, tin and tantalum in the area of Manono in the DRC, which is now quite famous for being the world’s largest undeveloped hard rock lithium resource. We own the majority of a tailings concession which is the result of a historical tin and tantalum mine that was active from around 1913 to 1980’s. At the time, the lithium was not considered as an economic mineral and so we have worked on defining a lithium resource within these tailings. Our Maiden Mineral Resource Estimate was released in January 2023 and are now in the feasibility studies stage, hoping to bring this lithium resource into production by 2025. Besides this lithium resource in the tailings, we have an extra 1,200 square kilometers of greenfield unexplored territory adjacent and down strike from the newly discovered resource in Manono. There is huge potential here for us making a new hard rock lithium discovery in the near future when we commence our drilling campaign. We are very busy in the area with a team of nearly 100 people on the ground and have invested in the construction of a modern industrial plant to process alluvial tin and tantalum concentrates. The plant will be in production very shortly and provide us with important cash flow to reinvest in our exploration activities in the area.. This project is extremely beneficial for the communities and the environment as we are focused on rehabilitating past artisanal workings who will typically have managed to extract only 15% of the material whereas our mining methods will optimize the recovery to nearly 100% and allow for rehabilitation of the area for agriculture and/or reforestation that will benefit the local communities . We are listed in Frankfurt, Canada and the U.S., and our investor base is divided between institutional entities (30%), AfriMet Resources, a trading company of Switzerland involved in the tin and tantalum space (30%), management (14%) and retail (26%).
What are the main challenges that you feel the mining industry has to overcome in order to become more revered?
When it comes to mining, the processes are not well understood, in general. There is an assortment of challenges that starts from the discovery of the resource and continues with the development phase, the social acceptance of the project, and, in some countries, the permitting. The shortage of manpower in most industrialized countries is adding to the hardships we already have with educating the wider public, and even the governments in some cases, regarding the importance of mining.
If we want to succeed as an industry, we must make it as clear as possible that extracting raw materials can be done in a sustainable and safe manner. All the excitement we get from discovering the resource is often shadowed by the complications that we meet across the way to extraction and processing.
We know that lithium is highly important for batteries, but what role will tin and tantalum play in the economy in the future?
Although tantalum is more in a niche market than lithium, it is a highly specialized and sought after metal, it also has a very attractive growth rate as the world continues to embrace technological progress. On the other hand, I am perceiving tin as a favorite metal because not many countries are producing it, which makes it more susceptible to volatility, but also vital due to its scarcity. In the next few years, we are confident to see a heightened interest towards tin.
How have you experienced operating in Congo?
We have been present here since 2016 through Joint Venture Agreements made with a state-owned company, Cominiere SA. The DRC has a certain reputation as a difficult country to invest in, but it does have a very productive and booming mining industry with established major companies like Barrick, Glencore, Ivanhoe, Zijin and CMOC. The DRC is the largest exporter of cobalt and the second largest exporter of copper in the world. The country welcomes investors from all countries and does expect to have mining companies be very active in ensuring sustainable benefits for the population. In fact, it is global politics that created a stir in the past few years, with an increasing division between the East and the West, mainly related to the critical minerals space. On the African continent, China has been very active in the last two decades and have invested in many projects regardless of the origin of the mining company.. With the recent geopolitical tensions, , it sometimes feels like the mining industry here is between a rock and a hard place. We have managed up to now to finance and develop our projects without promising any offtake agreements on our lithium resource but it is still troubling to see how the world is now more and more divided between these two poles of influence for access to the critical minerals.
What are the main objectives that you would like to achieve at Tantalex in the coming five to ten years?
We are focused on creating the first step of the value chain for base metals by transforming the mineable ore into a sellable concentrate but we would like to develop projects along with the downstream players that are buying our products and creating even more added value industries into the DRC. Right now, the infrastructure required to be able to build smelters of refineries is not yet in place, but we hope that within five years we will have a project on the table. In the lithium space, there are a lot of companies integrating vertically and aiming to create their own lithium carbonate or hydroxide facilities. While this is not our direction right now, we believe this is going to be the way forward. Processing materials directly on the mining sites leads to less emissions resulting from transportation, and thus it assures a more holistic approach towards making the mining sector more environmentally friendly.
What is the most satisfying aspect that keeps you passionate about this industry?
Given that only one in twenty projects is usually getting into production, being on the winning side feels extremely rewarding in the geological world, but the chance to help local communities lead a better life definitely trumps any other accomplishment. I have been working in Africa for the last 20 years and I have seen firsthand the benefits that the mining industry has brought here. Besides the economic prosperity expressed through new jobs, we have been able to directly touch people's lives by sponsoring a hospital in Manono, where doctors have already operated on 600 patients. Mining played a vital role in the development of most industrialized countries and today we have to recognize and support the efforts made by African countries to also become more prosperous nations.
