‘Dirty old coal miners’ reap $1bn reward from zero emission bet

A posse of former Ipswich coal miners’ decision to back a zero emission future has resulted in a $1bn reward with shares in their lithium company skyrocketing.

Tesla is seeking supplies of lithium.

A decision by a posse of former Ipswich coal miners to back a zero emission future has resulted in a $1bn reward.

Brett Lynch, James Brown, Allan Buckler and Dan O’Neill have seen the value their ASX-listed lithium venture Sayona Mining soar almost 19 times to $1.07bn since January.

Sayona yesterday announced another deal to expand in the lithium-rich Canadian province of Quebec as large car manufacturers ramp up electric vehicle production.

Lynch, Brown, Buckler and Dan O’Neill, who founded the company more than a decade ago, started their careers at the New Hope coal mine near Ipswich in the 1990s. They are now betting on demise of fossil fuels in the foreseeable future.

Brisbane-based Sayona will invest $120 million to acquire a 60 per cent stake in the Moblan lithium project in northern Quebec. The move follows the company’s recent acquisition of North American Lithium, also in Quebec, for $102m.

Former coal mining executive and Sayona boss Brett Lynch now beting on zero emissions

The strategy has paid off with Sayona’s shares soaring from 1 cent in January to a recent 52-week high of 20c, a surge that has seen its market cap exceeding $1bn for the first time. The shares, which were in a trading halt Thursday, closed at 17.5 cents on Wednesday

Lynch, who serves as Sayona managing director, has seen his personal stake in the firm rise from $1.06m to $18m since that start of the year. He said the Moblan project had potential for further expansion and would be an important asset for Sayona’s future growth.

“We have been monitoring opportunities for further expansion in Québec and this ticks all the right boxes,” said Lynch. “There is a huge opportunity here for Sayona to develop a new lithium asset base in northern Québec.”

“This will further drive our transformation into the leading lithium producer in North America, supplying its accelerating demand for this key battery metal.”

Lynch is modest about the achievements of the company noting “we are all dirty old coal miners from Ipswich but now we are mining lithium.” He remains convinced the “electric car revolution” was unstoppable.

With countries including Canada, the UK and Norway moving to phase out petrol-driven cars over the next few decades, Lynch said demand for lithium to power electric vehicles will be immense. He said a major advantage for Sayona is that its mines were close to major manufacturing hubs in the US. “The lithium we mine is 90 per cent rock so it doesn’t make much sense to ship it half way across the world,” he said.

In January Nasdaq-listed Piedmont Lithium, which is a key supplier to Tesla, took a 19.9 per cent stake in Sayona. The deal will result in Sayona supplying 60,000 tonnes of lithium concentrate ­annually to Piedmont’s processing plant in North Carolina.

SUNCORP BOSS TALKS

Suncorp boss Steve Johnston will be centre stage at the QUT Business Leaders Forum on Wednesday, October 6, discussing the role of business in a post-pandemic Australia.

It has been a pretty good year for Johnston, who took the chief executive role in September 2019, with Suncorp’s cash earnings jumping 42 per cent to $1.06bn for the year ended June 30 as it largely weathered lockdowns and other impacts of Covid-19.

A QUT alumnus, Johnston will share his personal leadership journey from his boyhood playing rugby league for the Easts Tigers through to leading Suncorp through the country’s devastating bushfires and global pandemic. Brisbane bizzoids will no doubt welcome the return of the sit down lunch and the end of the awful zoom virtual lunches.