James Bay Minerals: Boots are on the ground to bring nearology into reality

The strength behind James Bay Minerals’ (ASX: JBY) IPO might’ve given investors flashbacks to 2021-22 when new listings would easily double or triple upon debut.

Shares in the early stage lithium explorer listed on Wednesday, 13 September after successfully raising $6 million at 20 cents per share.

It closed at 30 cents on its debut and rallied to a brief peak of 61 cents by Friday, 15 September – Making it the best performing IPO of the year in terms of share price performance and volume traded in its first week.

But 2023 wouldn’t be 2023 without its fair share of volatility, with the stock easing to around 40 cents this week.

James Bay Minerals price chart (Source: TradingView)

The James Bay region in Quebec, Canada has seen its fair share of hype following major discoveries from names like:

• Sayona Mining (ASX: SYA)

• Patriot Battery Metals (ASX: PMT)

• Winsome Resource (ASX: WR1) 

As well as Allkem’s (ASX: AKE) recent resource upgrade for its own James Bay lithium project to 110.2 million tonnes at 1.30% lithium oxide. Making it one of the world’s largest hardrock assets.

So what’s the playing field like for a new entrant like James Bay Minerals? To find out more, I spoke to Executive Director Andrew Dornan about what makes the company stand out from the crowd, geological advantages in the region and what’s in play for the next couple of months.

James Bay Minerals At A Glance

James Bay Minerals holds one of the largest lithium exploration tenures in the James Bay region at 224 km². 

The company’s flagship La Grande Project consists of three prospects (named Joule, Aero and Aqua), all of which run along strike from Patriot’s Corvette and Winsome’s Cancet deposits.

Location of Joule, Aero and Aqua Prospects (Source: James Bay Minerals)

Its Troilus Project is located to the south of La Grande and 5 km from Sayona’s Moblan Project. Historical surveys have identified multiple anomalies which will be followed up with field mapping.

The Hottest Jurisdiction for Lithium Exploration

The James Bay region is an extremely mineralised area with the fastest rate of lithium discoveries, says Dornan, who views this region as the next frontier for lithium.

“And that’s why everyone’s trying to get in there,” he says.  

“But from our perspective, we didn’t just pop up last week. This has been a journey for over two years for our broader group. We’ve looked at different deposits globally, mapped and analysed the intricacies of each of them. This covered sedimentary, brine and hardrock deposits as well as the jurisdictions they sit in.”

“We’ve secured premium properties before all the hype ticked up this year. We haven’t pivoted from other areas just because the market’s died off.”

What Does Nearology Mean for La Grande?

It’s very common for junior explorers to establish tenements next to known mineral belts and/or established producers.

“Sitting on the same trend as those two discoveries [Patriot’s Corvette and Winsome’s Cancet deposits] is pretty exciting,” says Dornan.

But the fundamentals ingredients required to host massive lithium-caesium-tantalum pegmatites are also present. That being:

1. The properties sit within the right neo archaean rocks

2. On large deformation zones and major regional faults

3. Proximity to greenstone belts

“Although you can say ‘it's just nearology’, there’s actually some base geological fundamentals displayed across all three properties," he says.

Next Steps

James Bay Minerals kicked off a maiden exploration program at the Aero Property this week, which includes mapping of targeted areas, the collection of rock chips and channel samples for analysis.

The aim here is to “really build our database which will hopefully have some follow-up drill targets for early next year,” says Dornan.

“We’re also planning to get a helicopter out across some of the regional sectors of the la Grande Project. There’s a lot of activity over the next six weeks and that’ll help us plan our next steps.”

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