Palladium One (PDM) - Critical Minerals Company Accessing US Market

Palladium One Mining Inc. is an exploration stage critical minerals company with assets in both Finland and North America. The company aims to position itself to be a key part of the critical mineral sector and provide the expanding green transportation industry. The Läntinen Koillismaa (LK) project of the company is a platinum group element (PGE), nickel and copper project located in north-central Finland and is 100% owned by Palladium One Mining Inc. The Tyko property of the company is a nickel and copper project located in Northwestern Ontario. The newly acquired Canalask property is a nickel, copper and PGE project located in the Whitehorse Mining District of the Yukon.

Company Overview

The company announced at the start of June 2022 that it had initiated exploration drilling at the Bulldozer intrusion at its Tyko property. The company also announced that it had received the Induced Polarisation (IP) results of its conducted winter geophysical program. The IP results show 4 IP chargeability anomalies at the Bulldozer intrusion and 2 IP chargeability anomalies at the Smoke Lake intrusion of the project. The company is underway with securing the remaining two critical mineral exploration permits covering the Smoke Lake and Cupa Lake concessions of the project.

Palladium One Mining Inc. also announced in June 2022 that it had acquired the Canalask nickel, copper and PGE property from Victoria Gold Corp. The Canalask property is a 3,400-hectare land package consisting of 179 quartz claims and little historical exploration drilling. The property includes highlights such as numerous high-grade showings, drill-ready targets, the strong potential for massive nickel sulphide mineralisation and a historical mineral resource estimate of 400,000 tons of mineralisation at a grade of 1.35% nickel.

Critical Minerals Industry

Palladium One Mining Inc. aims to position itself as a key part of the global critical minerals industry through its Läntinen Koillismaa (LK) project, Tyko property and newly acquired Canalask property, Derek Weyrauch the president and CEO of Palladium One Mining Inc. explains the company’s intent as follows:

“We’re really trying to build a company that is relevant to what governments are talking about, in terms of what they need to support the industry, and what the industry is really looking towards.”

The Läntinen Koillismaa (LK) project of Palladium One Mining Inc. is a 100% owned platinum group elements (PGE), nickel and copper project located in north-central Finland, approximately 40 km north of the company’s exploration office in Taivalkoski.  The company’s Tyko property is located in North Western Ontario, 25 km north of the Hemlo Mining Complex. The property boasts Nickel, Copper and PGE mineralisation, with a 243 km2 land package in a mining-friendly jurisdiction. Weyrauch explains the locations of the company’s projects as strategic in the sense that it can supply critical minerals to both the European Union as well as the Americas, he states:

“We get a lot of attention from ESG funds or ESG investor-focused individuals in Europe because it’s a Scandinavian story. Palladium, platinum, nickel, copper, all these things we have, cobalt, are on the critical minerals list in the EU, while in North America with our Tyko project, we’re obviously hitting the North American critical minerals lists as well. We’re hitting both sides of the pond.”

The company believes that as Electrical Vehicles (EVs) are adopted by more countries, and as legislation starts to position itself to make the incorporation of EVs mandatory, there will be a transition period, where the industry moves away from traditional internal combustion engines. The transition period as well as the time leading up to it will necessitate certainty in Palladium supply. The supply will enable the production of catalytic converters for the exhaust gases of fossil fuel powered vehicles. The world’s primary producers of palladium, Russia, South America and South Africa are affected by international hesitance and political uncertainty leading to an insecure supply chain. Weyrauch explains the transition and security of supply challenges as follows:  

“There is going to be a transition period of time here, but right now, I think we’re very relevant from a security of supply, as it relates to the Finnish project where we have palladium being the dominant metal. OEMs have the security of supply issues with 40% of global mine production coming from Russia, and another 40% coming from South America or South Africa, there are huge risks associated with these jurisdictions, so we’re relevant right now in terms of the current conversation and the current supply risks that the OEMs are having…”

The company is planning to position itself to be able to create a secure supply chain of Palladium through its operations in safe and mining-friendly jurisdictions. Weyrauch explains:

“We’re trying to position ourselves so that we’re also going to be relevant as the expansion of the battery electric vehicle occurs on both continents. It’s still very small. Yes, the growth rates are large, and people keep talking about it, but at the end of the day, we’re still talking about very low penetration rates.”

New Acquired CanAlask Project

To add to the company’s strategic positioning in supplying the global critical elements market, Palladium One Mining Inc. announced on the 13th of June 2022, that it had acquired the Canalask Nickel, Copper and PGE project from Victoria Gold Corporation.

The Canalask property is located in the Whitehorse Mining District of the Yukon and is comprised of 179 quartz claims covering approximately 3,400 hectares. The mineral resource estimate calculated at the property in 1968, shows 400,000 tons of mineralisation at a grade of 1.35% Nickel. Various exploration campaigns were launched at the property including geochemical surveys, geological mapping and geophysics, with metallurgical flotation test results showing possible concentrate grades of up to 19.7%.

The acquisition transaction of the Canalask property consisted of CAD$ 25,000 payable in cash and CAD$ 200,000 payable in common shares of Palladium One Mining Inc. to Victoria Gold Corporation on closing. Victoria Gold Corporation will further retain a 2% Net Smelter Return (NSR ) royalty on the project, with Palladium One Mining Inc. retaining a 50% buyback right. Palladium One Mining Inc. will further pay CAD$ 2 million to Victoria Gold Corporation upon commercial production or the publishing of a feasibility study for the Canalask property, whichever is earlier, as well as CAD$ 5 million additional upon commercial production. Weyrauch sums up the transaction as follows:

“We’ve got a situation where we’ve got an advanced project that has drill targets ready. It not only has the typical basal contact that you would see but also footwall opportunities such as Sudbury. We’re looking at a Sudbury nickel camp model for this project in the Yukon and trying to take a very disciplined approach…We’ll be doing some geophysics and following that, we’d hope to do some drilling. But first and foremost, we need to go and engage with the local communities and get a social licence.”

LK and Tyko projects update 

Palladium One Mining in April published a Mineral Resource Estimate of its Läntinen Koillismaa (LK) project as well as published the MRE on SEDAR at the beginning of June 2022. The MRE boasts a 248% increase in mineralisation in the indicated category and a 14% increase in mineralisation in the inferred category. The phase 2 metallurgical test program demonstrated the ability to create both high-grade copper and nickel concentrates, Weyrauch explains the progress of the project as follows:

“We’ve demonstrated we can produce a very clean, high-value concentrate, and as a matter of fact, we can also produce both nickel and a copper concentrate of high value, and fairly easy to sell. But the next issue for us really is permitting. So many projects get hung up for years and years on permitting, so we had the view last year that we would be achieving scale, it was pretty clear to us.”

The company has enlisted the services of a Scandinavian company to assist with the permitting of the project, from which it will move towards an environmental impact assessment. Weyrauch explains:

“…we’re really trying to do is get into that environmental impact assessment process sooner rather than later in order to de-risk the project and be able to move it forward as far as Finland is concerned, scale and met are there, the focus right now is on the permitting of it to tick that box, and we’ll come back to drilling it out and doing some more infill drilling and expanding the project in due course”

The company announced at the start of June 2022 that it had initiated exploration drilling at the Bulldozer intrusion of the project as well as received the Induced Polarisation (IP) results from its winter geophysical program. The IP results show 4 IP chargeability anomalies at the Bulldozer intrusion and 2 IP chargeability anomalies at the Smoke Lake intrusion of the project. Weyrauch explains the motivation to further explore the project as follows:

“We did some soil sampling around the area, got fantastically anomalous values in the soils, and followed it up with drilling, and spectacular results. Very high-grade, 10% nickel at the surface, and that really gave us the encouragement to spend more money on the project…”

Future approach

Palladium One Mining Inc. plans to devote the remainder of the year to the exploration of its Canadian Tyko project, Weyrauch explains the company’s intent as follows:

“We plan on drilling throughout the balance of the year. We’ve still got another 6-months of the year to go, and we’ll be able to see what the market conditions are at the time, but obviously, it is always valuable to continue moving the project forward.”

Weyrauch explains that Palladium One Mining Inc. is open to the acquisition of new properties in the future, he states:

“There are opportunities to get assets that could be quite accretive, and if you can do it for next to no consideration, cash consideration, we’re preserving our optionality with our cash balance and adding value to the company, and there’s always, depending on how things move, the opportunity to then spin out an asset on a standalone basis if you’ve got a sufficient amount of discovery success with it.”

Weyrauch explains that the current market allows the opportunity for a junior mining company, and specifically Palladium One Mining Inc. to position itself correctly for value addition in the future, he states:

“These are the times when I think money is made. It’s not with a hot market. Everybody’s making money with a hot market and things are going easy, but right now if you can position yourself, play a little bit of chess, and build your portfolio strategically, I think there are very good opportunities available.”

To find out more, go to the Palladium One website