St George Mining mints MOU with Chinese lithium heavyweight Jayson New Energy Materials

St George Mining (ASX:SGQ), a company exploring for both nickel and lithium in its battery metals strategy, has today firmed up its ambitions with a new non-binding MOU scored with a Chinese lithium supplier heavyweight. 

Jayson Shanghai New Energy Materials, while not legally bound to deliver anything to St George in way of further contracts, participated in St George’s latest capital raising exercise, giving the company just over $2m to develop its Mt. Alexander project. 

Jayson, as a provider of lithium battery precursor materials, is interested in funding nickel and copper projects where it can, given both base metals are emerging darlings of the battery metals supply chain. 

In short, both copper and nickel are required in larger amounts than lithium itself for the manufacture of a lithium-ion battery. 

What does the MOU cover? 

St George will work with Jayson to “pursue lithium business opportunities.” 

In everyday language, that means both companies are going to continue communicating with one another and, ideally, agree on a mutual commercial strategy to further develop St George towards production of nickel, and lithium, from Mt. Alexander. 

The implication between the lines is that, all cards in order, Jayson may end up executing an offtake agreement with St George for the latter’s nickel and lithium to be used in Jayson’s ongoing battery supply chain operations. 

Pegmatite mineralisation is known to occur on-site the project acreage. 

St George notes today two lithium industry heavyweights in China are attached to the project: Mr. Feng Liang of PUTALAI (another Asian lithium heavyweight,) and, Mr. Zeng Yuqun, a major shareholder at CATL; one of the world’s most  outright prominent manufacturers of lithium-ion batteries. 

As the MOU evolves, St George will continue drilltesting its Mt. Alexander acreage to see what else it can find. 

Important strategic relationship: management 

“Our strategic relationship with Jayson will strengthen our capacity to advance Mt Alexander and unlock the full potential of our large landholding in this new lithium province in Western Australia,” St George chief John Prineas said. 

“Our MoU also extends to new project generation in Western Australia as well as downstream processing opportunities, providing our respective companies with a diverse range of options to continue building strong businesses in the clean energy sector.” 

A look at St George's six month charts show a palpable manifestation of investor interest starting in mid-September