With ample funding already in hand to move the Sepeda project in Portugal forward, the company has sold its Western Australia lithium project to Pilbara Minerals in an A$8 million transaction that further underwrites its Europe-focussed development and marketing strategy.

Managing director David Frances and his management team can now also dedicate all their energies and acumen to the pursuit of Dakota’s goals to be part of Europe’s growing battery mineral supply chain, and raise the company’s profile in the region’s investment community.

This looks increasingly likely to lead to a dual-listing for Dakota in London, where investors have few options to gain quality exposure to a local battery minerals market play. Frances says he already met with a number of prominent European investment groups with mandates to invest in clean energy projects and in that regard Sepeda ticked a high-level box.

With the project’s probable reliance on hydro-power, significant job and wealth creating potential in an existing mining district in Portugal, and separation from traditional ethically-challenged global lithium-ion battery supply lines, Sepeda’s appeal to European investors is expected to grow as Dakota builds its case for development.

“We can tick all the boxes for a project in this part of the world,” Frances said.

“Assuming the next drill holes come back as we think they will, we have the funding to do as much drilling as required to generate a maiden resource and then move forward with feasibility work. If we can show we’ve got a project I don’t think funding it will be a problem.

“Getting a [lithium] project into production and showing there is low-cost, reliable supply on the doorstep of these new industries that are developing fast in Europe is a race.

“We’ll throw as much money at it as we can to win that race.”

Dakota is accelerating into a second round of drilling after posting strong initial results from a 2,000m reverse circulation (RC) programme on known petalite and spodumene-bearing pegmatites at Sepeda (example pictured below right).

The company had earlier completed mapping and sampling to assess a swarm of lithium-bearing pegmatites evident in shallow underground workings, and some surface outcropping, over at least a 2.4km strike strength and an area up to 800m wide in northern Portugal’s Barroso-Alvão district.

Lithium mineralisation grading up to 2.8% Li2O was present in petalite and spodumene samples at surface and in the underground workings, with the pegmatites thought to form a folded system of mineralised dykes.

Dakota’s X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) work at Sepeda indicates samples contain mainly petalite with some associated spodumene, with low muscovite mica content that is seen to be metallurgically advantageous. The company has dispatched a 200kg bulk sample to Anzaplan in Germany for metallurgical testing and to aid early assessment of processing options.

Petalite is an important ore mineral for lithium, with a density of 2.4g/cc, hardness of 6, and generally low iron. A standout occurrence is at the Bikita mine in Zimbabwe.

Traditionally mined for glass-ceramic industry input, petalite is also processed to yield chemical-grade lithium carbonate/hydroxide products for the battery market and is amenable to similar processing techniques to spodumene.

Already drilling at Sepeda has returned thick, shallow intercepts such as 40m grading 1.11% Li2O and 16m of 1.39% Li2O.

Work on consolidating ownership of small-scale, family-owned mining interests in the district is underway and Dakota sees excellent scope to make rapid progress once a resource base is established in the first quarter of next year.

“The beauty of being in Europe is that, logistically, you’re looking at very different development scenarios to what you see in places like Australia,” Frances says.

“There, because of the remoteness of the resources [to markets] and general lack of infrastructure, every project has got to have 40 million tonnes-plus of resource otherwise it’s too small. In Europe the critical size is probably about 7.5Mt to support a long-term, stable offtake business.

“The supply chain is completely different. You’ll probably transport material in small trucks, daily, whereas here you’ve got to stockpile large quantities of material and bulk ship it to China, or Asia, from Australia. In Europe the infrastructure is phenomenal, the storage on site can be small, and your daily production can be just enough to handle the number of trucks going out.

“So, smaller plants, lower capex, and lower operating costs as well.”

Dakota has already outlined a strategy to produce lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide, rather than bulk concentrate, given the lower and clean hydropower costs in Portugal.

With more than $A13 million in the bank and more cash coming from the Pilbara Minerals transaction, Dakota is well funded to fast track its Europe lithium plan.

“The company is in a very strong position and we have early mover advantage in Europe,” Frances (left) says.

“We’ve got a very clear strategy, we’re extremely focused, we’re well funded and we believe we’ve got a good management team.”

Dakota chairman John Fitzgerald is a highly experienced mining executive who is also on the board of ASX 100 listed company Northern Star Resources, Danakali Resources and Carbine Resources.

Technical director Dr Francis Wedin has mining experience spanning three continents and multiple commodities and is passionate about driving the transition to a global renewable energy grid.

Frances also brings vast international mining and funding experience, including the transformation of previously ASX-listed Mawson West into a Toronto-listed African miner by way of the largest base-metals capital raise and IPO in the world for 2010.

“The shift to electric vehicles in Europe is being driven by the people, everybody wants to go clean and green – they’ve already made that paradigm shift,” he says.

“We want to be the main supplier of lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide into the ever-growing European market for battery production.

“We viewed that as where the first early onset penetration of electric vehicles is going to be so that was our strategy right from day one.”

The market is also seeing the early onset of affordable home energy storage solutions based on lithium-ion battery technology, with Daimler-Mercedes and its modular system emblematic of developments in that field.

“We don’t think any of that is factored into current lithium demand and pricing projections,” Frances says.

“As I say, it’s a race to demonstrate that you can be an efficient, reliable part of that rapidly emerging battery minerals supply chain.

“And it’s one we intend to win.”