Topic: How To Invest

Q: Pat: I have followed Avalon Advanced Materials for some time. What are your thoughts on this company and its prospects?

Article Excerpt

A: Avalon Advanced Materials, $0.12, symbol AVL on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 179.5 million; Market cap: $21.5 million; www.avalonadvancedmaterials.com), is a Canadian junior mineral exploration and development company. It is largely focused on lithium and rare earth elements. The company’s main lithium prospect is its Separation Rapids deposit near Kenora, Ontario. Avalon completed a preliminary economic study on the project in September 2016. That research calls for a $514-million mine. First, however, Avalon must build a pilot plant to test the effectiveness of its new method of processing ore from the proposed mine. Whether the technology will work on the difficult-to-process ore is uncertain, and that adds a lot of risk. Lithium has historically been mined for use in household batteries, glass and ceramics, lubricants, refrigeration, pharmaceuticals, polymers and aluminum production. Now, however, the metal mostly goes into lithium-ion and lithium-metal batteries for electric and hybrid-electric cars. Most of today’s lithium comes from brine solutions drawn from salt lakes such as the Chabyer in Tibet…