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CMJ Daily Tape

FEASIBILITY STUDY | LITHIUM

Surge's Nevada North pre-feasibility study prints a US$9.81 billion after-tax NPV

Surge Battery Metals published the pre-feasibility study for the Nevada North Lithium Project in Elko County, Nevada, on October 2, 2026. The study reports an after-tax NPV8% of US$9.81 billion, an after-tax IRR of 23.6% and a 4.2-year after-tax payback. Phase 1 initial capital is US$2.77 billion and Phase 2 expansion capital US$2.35 billion. Life-of-mine operating cost averages US$4,719 per tonne of lithium carbonate over a 42-year mine life, with average annual output near 92,250 tonnes and peak output near 111,400 tonnes. Proven and probable reserves are 218.3 Mt at 3,928 ppm lithium. The joint venture is owned 67.5% by Surge and 32.5% by Evolution Mining, and the study assumes lithium carbonate at US$24,000 per tonne.

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The number to test is not the US$9.81 billion. It is the US$24,000 per tonne price deck held across a 42-year life. Nevada North is a sulfuric acid leach route fed by gravity beneficiation, with an on-site sulfur-burning acid plant supplying power, so the cost line is tied to delivered sulfur and acid plant availability rather than to third-party conversion fees. Qualification is the other gate: battery-grade carbonate off a new leach flowsheet has to pass cathode-maker homologation, and that clock starts at commissioning, not at the study.

CAPITAL RAISE | NICKEL-COPPER

Perseverance closes an $11.8 million placement with Teck and Altius on the register

Perseverance Metals closed a non-brokered private placement of 18,121,426 common shares at $0.65 per share for gross proceeds of $11,778,926.90. The company named Teck Resources, Altius Minerals, Crescat Capital and NQ Investissement Minier among the buyers and did not disclose individual amounts; insiders took 92,300 shares in aggregate. Finders received $42,543 in cash commissions and 65,450 warrants. Proceeds fund the diamond drill campaign at the Voyageur nickel-copper-cobalt-PGE project in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, which covers 680 square kilometres and includes the Osprey discovery, plus exploration at Lac Gayot in Quebec and Armit Lake in Ontario.

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The drill campaign is not the hard part. Voyageur is nickel-copper-cobalt-PGE sulphide, and North America has no spare domestic sulphide nickel conversion capacity, so a discovery at Osprey would be sold as concentrate into a smelter queue, not as sulphate into a battery contract. On that read, Teck on the register is worth more as a metallurgical and offtake pathway than as cash. The question for 2027 is which smelter would take the concentrate, at what payables and on what freight.

CAPITAL RAISE | COBALT

Electra drew US$92,000 from a US$25 million at-the-market program in the third quarter

Electra Battery Materials reported its capital markets activity for the third quarter of 2026. Under its at-the-market equity program, authorized for up to US$25 million, the company issued 150,003 common shares for gross proceeds of about US$92,000, at a weighted average price of US$0.6152 per share, with commissions of about US$7,000. The most recent sale under the program was on August 28, 2026. Since the program began in late 2025, the average price has been US$0.87 per share. Employees bought 37,341 shares under the employee share purchase program, matched by the same number acquired by the company.

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An at-the-market program that draws US$92,000 in a quarter is not a construction funding plan. Electra's cobalt sulphate refinery in Ontario needs a committed instrument to restart and finish, and an equity dribble that last printed in August does not carry it. For a buyer looking for qualified non-Chinese cobalt sulphate, the only date that matters is first qualified product off that plant, and nothing in this disclosure moves it. Treat commissioning guidance as unfunded until the capital is named.

TECHNICAL REPORT | LITHIUM

PMET refiles the Shaakichiuwaanaan technical report after an AMF review

PMET Resources filed an amended NI 43-101 technical report on its 2025 lithium-only feasibility study for the Shaakichiuwaanaan project in the Eeyou Istchee James Bay region of Quebec, following a review by the Autorite des marches financiers. The corrections cover qualified persons' certificates, map formatting and scaling, cut-off grade clarification for caesium oxide, and the reasonable prospects for economic extraction of caesium, tantalum and gallium. The company states the clarifications have no impact on the economic or technical conclusions of the 2025 study, and separates this filing from the updated feasibility study including tantalum economics expected in the fourth quarter of 2026. The probable reserve is 84.3 Mt at 1.26% Li2O.

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A regulator asking for clarification on the prospects for caesium, tantalum and gallium is a question about the by-product case, not a formatting note. The 2025 study is spodumene concentrate only, about 800,000 tonnes a year out of dense media separation, which puts the whole revenue line into concentrate offtake terms and freight out of James Bay. With tantalum economics due in the fourth quarter of 2026, the operational question is whether a tantalum circuit changes the concentrate specification converters have already qualified.

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