This article is a sponsored feature from Mining.com.au partner Libra Energy Materials. It is not financial advice. Talk to a registered financial expert before making investment decisions.
Launching a lithium exploration company at the bottom of the sector’s downturn might have seemed like an unlikely move, but for Libra Energy Materials (CSE:LIBR) it was a deliberate strategy. Rather than chasing market momentum, as many others have tried, the company listed in 2025 with the intention of using weaker sentiment to build a large, diversified portfolio of critical mineral assets at attractive valuations.
Within a year, Libra has expanded from six projects to over 30 in Canada and Brazil, while attracting high-profile validation through a C$33 million ($33.6 million) earn-in agreement with KoBold Metals, the AI exploration company backed by Bill Gates.
CEO Koby Kushner says Libra is one of only two public companies, to his knowledge, to have this type of agreement in place with KoBold, and it’s all thanks to the discoveries made prior to taking the company public. KoBold is earning into three of Libra’s projects in Ontario, Canada.
As lithium fundamentals improve and the demand for battery materials continues to strengthen, Libra is now sharpening its focus on its next chapter. With exploration underway across multiple jurisdictions, new discoveries in rare earth elements (REEs), gallium, and graphite, and a pipeline of near-term catalysts, Kushner believes the company is well positioned to capitalise on the next cycle in critical minerals.
Libra has a somewhat unconventional model in the junior mining space, operating more like a hybrid project generator, with so many different projects within its portfolio. While Kushner is working to simplify the story for the market, he also notes that the geology the company is targeting also simplifies matters.
“If you have a vein of gold, you might have a 1 gram per tonne deposit or a 20g/t deposit — there’s so much variability and you can’t get a good indication based on surface expression,” Kushner says.
“With both lithium and graphite, if it’s outcropping, you can get a really good handle on what you have with very minimal effort.
“For lithium-bearing systems, there’s only one type of hard rock lithium deposit, which is spodumene-bearing pegmatites, and these are very hard rock and erode slower than most rock around them, meaning that they often outcrop.
“There’s a lot of low-hanging fruit that you can observe without needing to put in a drill hole.”
Libra focuses on low-cost but high-impact exploration, which Kushner notes is entirely possible with lithium, with projects ranked on two key qualitative metrics. The first is the geological potential and scale. The company wants to see wide-spanning pegmatites because width correlates to a larger tonnage resource. The second is explorability, which is the likelihood of finding a deposit and taking it to the next level.
“The strategy is to cast a wide net, then trim the fat. We drop ground and pick up new ground, often exploring in very under-explored but geologically prospective areas,” Kushner says.
“That’s how we made our recent rare earths and gallium discovery in Brazil, and our graphite discovery in Ontario”
Shallow rare earths and fast permitting put Brazil in focus
Kushner notes that Brazil is one of the most prospective countries in the world, with a massive amount of land that has seen a fraction of the exploration spend that Canada has. It’s also becoming a major battery metals hub, with numerous exploration and development projects.
“Canada is great, but our timelines to production are nothing compared to Brazil,” Kushner says.
Though Canada has begun to make steps in the right direction in terms of permitting and other regulatory timelines, it doesn’t compare to the efficiency Kushner has seen in Brazil.
“I’d like to see Canada’s fast-tracking drive trickle down to the juniors. I don’t think the government should be picking winners, I’d rather the government spend money on making Canada a more investable jurisdiction,” Kushner says.
Libra’s Brazilian focus sits with the Penelope Project at the moment, a near-surface rare earths discovery. The company has received the first six assays from its maiden auger drill program, which returned consistent grades exceeding 1,000 parts per million total rare earth oxides (TREOs), including 2m @ 2,033ppm TREO, as previously reported.
Kushner stresses that the standout feature of the Penelope discovery is how shallow it is, with the deepest hole reaching about 20m and an average drilling depth of about 17m. This drill program has been to test the potential footprint of the mineralised system across three key targets.
“Depending on the remaining drill results, the next logical step would be to bring in a reverse circulation rig that would allow us to drill deeper,” Kushner says.
“We do think that as we go deeper, there’s a good chance of getting better grades.”
Kushner adds that parts of the ground sitting above the A-type granite remain completely untested. To date, drilling has targeted what the company interprets as clays derived from niobium-yttrium-fluorine-type pegmatites rather than the much larger A-type granite body. Libra believes that testing directly above this granite could reveal a significantly larger system.
The company is putting together plans for next steps at Penelope, including some metallurgy to confirm that the deposit is definitely ionic adsorption clay.
Lithium’s next million tonnes: Why Libra is betting on grassroots exploration
With the recent addition of REEs, gallium, and graphite, Libra is well diversified across the battery metals, with a deliberately strong exposure to lithium.
“Lithium has amazing fundamentals right now. It’s volatile, but that presents new opportunities for acquisitions,” Kushner says.
“It took about 75 years for the lithium market to get to 1 million tonnes, and now it’s growing at such a fast rate, it’s around 20% a year from now until 2040.
“So the next million tonnes is taking less than five years to achieve.”
Kushner notes that he sees the most opportunity arising in the earlier stage projects. Compare that with copper, which also has a strong macro thematic backing its fundamentals. However, it’s much harder to find new copper deposits and nothing has eclipsed the discovery of Escondida in Chile.
“For lithium, I’m of the view that if you want to bet on the space, you should bet on the grassroots explorers that are most likely to find the next major discovery.”
Lithium is expected to see a deficit in supply in 2026. Kushner notes that the last time lithium saw a deficit was in 2022, which caused prices to spike to C$80 per kilogram. While the market doesn’t expect prices to get to this point again, the expected deficit this year is meant to be almost three times that of 2022.
For that reason, Kushner remains bullish on the sector, noting a significant amount of supply that has come offline and has yet to return.
With regards to funding, in 2022 and early 2023, lithium was attracting significant support, which created a large oversupply of lithium companies. While many of those have exited the sector or pivoted to gold, Libra has remained focused and ready for this next phase in the lithium growth sector.
“What’s different this time around is that lithium is now competing with copper, with gold, and so many other metals getting funded right now.”
The company expects to see growing investment into the space, especially as the market grows and matures.
KoBold validation, first-mover advantage, and a sharpened lithium focus
Libra’s challenge, and opportunity, is that the market still isn’t recognising the sum of its parts.
As Kushner puts it, “Even just the KoBold spend is triple our market cap, so we are looking now to simplify the story and really narrow our focus down onto lithium.”
The company’s Penelope discovery in Brazil underscores this strategy. While the team originally targeted lithium, the deposit turned out to be the wrong type of pegmatites, but it was the right type for rare earths, opening up opportunities for partnerships or a potential spin-out to unlock better value.
Kushner wants investors to take an objective look at Libra’s valuation and make an assessment on the sum of its parts.
“Add up our cash position, including our large equity stake in Athena Gold (CSE:ATHA), the value of our 30+ projects, and the C$33 million KoBold earn-in across just three Ontario assets. Even if you apply a steep discount, our valuation should exceed our current market cap.”
The next few months are going to be busy for Libra, with the Canadian field season now underway and with multiple projects set for first-pass work.
Kushner is particularly excited about stepping onto the Toivo lithium project in Ontario. The company has a first-mover position in this new lithium district that is attracting major names such as KoBold and Fortescue (ASX:FMG).
“These aren’t mom and pop prospectors — these are multi-billion-dollar companies,” Kushner says.
Libra also expects near-term catalysts across Brazil and Canada, including pending assay results, new executives on the team, new discoveries, and updates on mergers and acquisitions activity. With land positions across Ontario, Québec, and Brazil, and as the only publicly-listed junior holding a KoBold earn-in, the company is positioning itself as a significant Canadian exploration company.
With lithium fundamentals strengthening and supply tightening across 2026, Libra Energy Materials is preparing for a cycle where disciplined project generation, strategic partnerships, and first-mover positions can translate into meaningful value creation.
The story may be broad, but the next chapter is sharply focused.
Write to Amy Rotman at Mining.com.au
Images: Mining.com.au, Libra Energy Materials
