COMPANY PROFILE
"First-mover advantage for lithium brine in Southeast Mongolia"
Company Highlights
● Holder of one of the largest mining licenses in Mongolia, with more than 110,000 hectares of lithium brine property, consisting of two projects: Urgakh Naran and the flagship, Baavhai Uul site that is only 24 km from the Chinese border.
● Management owns 25% of the company.
●Accomplished management team with extensive experience operating in Mongolia for over a decade, and a trusted partner with all levels of government, and the Mongolian University of Science and Technology.
● An exploration joint venture with Aranjin Resources (TSXV:ARJN) for reciprocal exploration rights to its respective exploration licenses within Mongolia.
Corporate Presentation
Overview
ION Energy Ltd. (TSXV:ION, OTC:IONGF) is a battery metal exploration company focusing on lithium exploration in southeast Mongolia. The company holds one of the largest mining licenses in Mongolia and is leveraging its first-mover advantage to explore an area of more than 81,000 hectares containing lithium brine targets.
The Mongolian government has granted ION Energy one of the largest exploration licenses in the country for the company’s Baavhai-Uul project in the Sukhbaatar province. The 81,758-hectare asset contains high-grade, near-surface lithium brines of up to 810 parts per million (ppm) with low potassium and magnesium ratios, which makes for better crystallization of the lithium hydroxide. ION Energy is the first company to be granted a license for this asset, which has never been mined before. Previous exploration work has been conducted on the project by the Technical University of Mongolia and the Mongolian government.
ION Energy’s management team has extensive experience working with the Mongolian government, which has been largely supportive of mining exploration within the country. The Mongolian economy is largely commodity-based and is considered by the World Bank to be stable and growing. Mongolia enjoys social and political stability and offers a low cost of doing business for international miners. The country is equipped with high-quality and reliable mining and transportation infrastructure. Mongolia’s advantageous position in East Asia puts it close to major lithium markets like China, Korea, Japan and Russia.
Mongolia’s Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA) with Canada, signed in 2017, established a legal framework under which Canadian investors working in Mongolia are offered greater predictability and certainty for their investments.
The geology of Southeast Mongolia mirrors the famed Lithium Triangle of South America. Like the Lithium Triangle, the region is an endorheic basin contained within a low precipitation zone.
Key Projects
Baavhai-Uul Project, Mongolia
ION energy’s Baavhai-Uul asset is located approximately 800 kilometers southeast of Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, and 200 kilometers south of Baruun-Urt, the capital of Mongolia’s Sukhbaatar province. The property is located about 24 kilometers from the Chinese border, and totals approximately 81,758 hectares. The area is well connected, with paved roads connecting all population centers in the area to the capital city. Gravel roads lead directly to the Baavhai-Uul property. Local towns could supply the project with inexpensive labor, while supplies and equipment can easily be obtained from Ulaanbaatar.
Exploration work has been conducted on the property by the Mongolian University of Science and Technology. The university’s work consisted of two pits drilled by hand auger in the lake bottom collected in 20-cm intervals and has indicated the presence of high-grade, near-surface lithium brines. Sampling results by the university indicate lithium content in brines of up to 811 ppm lithium with an average of 462.64 ppm lithium. The samples were assayed by the independent certified assay lab Khanlab LLC located in Ulaanbaatar.
Urgakh Naran: Rising Sun Project
Ion Energy's Urgakh Naran Rising Sun project is composed of over 29,000 hectares of highly prospective lithium terrain. The acquisition of the Urgakh Naran Project brings the total land area held by the company prospective for lithium salars to over 110,000 hectares.
The project is situated in the arid and infrastructure-rich region of the South Gobi Desert, where the brine sample collected at surface assayed 918 mg/L lithium – the highest-grade lithium brine known to have ever been collected in Mongolia.
Throughout 2022, exploration activities at Urgakh Naran have included a shallow, auger drilling program, with 73 holes in the Spring, an 82 line-km TEM geophysical survey with results announced in July, a follow-up 16-km TEM survey, two strategic site visits by management and a volume estimate of the brine aquifer of 22.7 billion cubic meters in August. All of ION Energy’s recent exploration updates continued to indicate strong conductivity and low resistivity.
Management Team
- Ali Haji, BSc - CEO, Director
Ali Haji is the director of Antler Hill Mining Ltd and Spirit Banner II Capital Corp. Haji serves as an advisor to ATMA Capital Markets Ltd and Steppe Gold.
AliHaji has extensive knowledge of the financial services sector after having spent over 13 years in the asset management industry performing strategic and process improvement roles. He started his career as a technology analyst at Invesco Ltd. in 2006 and advanced into various roles including technology risk, controls, program management, and process improvement, with international assignments involving mergers and acquisitions in Hong Kong, USA and Australia. Most recently, he was a principal contributor to the creation of a Center of Excellence in London, England for Invesco Ltd. Haji attended Western University and holds a BSc in computer science.
- Matthew Wood - Chairman of the Board, Director
Matthew Wood is a mineral resource explorer and developer with over 25 years of global industry experience in mining and commodities investments. He serves as the chairman of Steppe Gold (TSX:STGO). He was a founding chairman of Avanco Resources, which sold in March 2018 for AU$440 million and Hunnu Coal, which sold for US$500 million in 2012.
Matthew has managed investment deals in diamonds, coal, energy, ferrous metals, base and precious metals, and other commodities. His unique skills in technical and economic evaluation of resource opportunities have resulted in a record of nurturing resource deals from early stage, to market listings and exit strategies for his investors.
He was the founder and executive chairman of Mongolian coal company, Hunnu Coal Limited. Hunnu Coal was IPO of the year for all sectors on the ASX in 2010, and its sale for approximately A$500M in 2011 to Banpu PCL was recognized as the Mines and Money 2012 Deal of the Year. Wood has founded and been involved in many other resource companies and investments through the years.
- Bataa Tumur-Ochir - Director
Bataa Tumur-Ochir is a Mongolian citizen and executive director of Steppe Gold LLC. At Steppe Gold, he is responsible for new business acquisitions, development and government and community relations. Tumur-Ochir is also responsible for daily operations in Mongolia. Tumur-Ochir is currently a director at GCD Mongolia and CEO and executive director of ASX listed Wolf Petroleum.
Under his guidance, Wolf Petroleum was awarded the “Operator of the Year Award” from the Petroleum Authority of Mongolia, and today, Wolf Petroleum is recognized as the fastest-growing petroleum exploration company with the largest petroleum exploration acreage in Mongolia. Tumur-Ochir holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration and graduate certificates in international business and marketing from Australia and Singapore.
- Aneel Waraich, MBA - Director
Aneel Waraich is the EVP and director of Steppe Gold, director of Antler Hill Mining Ltd, CEO of Spirit Banner Capital Corp, founder of ATMA and ATMACORP with experience in investment banking at Dundee.
Waraich is the founder of ATMA Capital Markets and ATMACORP LTD and a financial services professional with progressive experience in both asset management and corporate finance businesses.
Waraich focuses primarily on advising public and private companies in the Natural Resources sector. In previous roles at Goodman and Company Investment Counsel and Dundee Capital Markets, he worked as an analyst valuing private companies. Most recently Aneel worked as an investment banker focusing on deal origination, going-public transactions and financings for both public and private companies in the resource and technology sectors.
- Enkhtuvshin Khishigsuren - Director
Enkhtuvshin Khishigsuren has over 30 years of Mongolian mineral exploration experience. He has focused his expertise on the precious metals exploration sector resulting in successes for numerous companies. Khishigsuren spent the first 10-12 years of his career at Central Geological Expedition doing regional geological mapping in various areas of Mongolia, followed by seven years as senior exploration manager on exploration of precious metal in Mongolia for Harrods Minerals, a privately funded exploration company.
Since 2005 he has been running his own company Erdenyn Erel and conducting exploration and consulting services to Western exploration and mining companies. Khishigsuren has been responsible for identifying targets and properties. His knowledge and experience have resulted in the discovery of several prospective gold and copper deposits in Mongolia; such as the multimillion ounce gold deposit Olon Ovoot, a large molybdenum porphyry deposit Zuun mod and the Shand copper porphyry deposit near Erdenet copper mine.
- John McVicar - Chief Financial Officer
John McVicar brings more than 30 years of international business experience in Management Consulting and Finance. His previous roles include Consulting Partner at a Big 4 firm, CFO of a TSX-listed company and several regional finance leadership roles with large US and Canadian multinationals in Canada, the US, South America and Asia. McVicar is a CPA, CA and graduated with an MBA from Duke University and a B. Comm from Queen’s University.
- Wendy Li - Director - Asia
Wendy Li's more than 18 years of extensive commercial and business development experience in Asia, including Mongolia and China, has spanned across commodity branding and trading, supply chain management and asset development. Prior to joining Ion Energy, Li served as General Manager of International Trade for Noble Resources Ltd and General Manager of Marketing for SouthGobi Resources Ltd. Ms. Li graduated from Wilfrid Laurier University, in Waterloo, Canada with a Bachelor of Arts, Honours in Economic and Financial Management.
