This article is a sponsored feature from Mining.com.au partner Q2 Metals. It is not financial advice. Talk to a registered financial expert before making investment decisions.
Q2 Metals (TSX-V:QTWO) is publishing its maiden mineral resource estimate (MRE) on its Cisco Lithium Project within weeks and, based on its exploration target released in July 2025, is hopeful that Cisco will place in the top 10 of the largest lithium projects in the world.
In fact, some Western Australian lithium producers — known among the world’s best — may be in for a surprise, based on the conceptual estimate of the exploration target as well as drilling done to date by the junior Canadian explorer.
Chris Ackerman, who works in Q2’s Corporate Development, says it is entering its “transformational” stage at its flagship Cisco Lithium Project in the southernmost area of the Eeyou Istchee James Bay region in Québec, Canada.
“We’re moving from what’s typically described as early-stage exploration into an advanced exploration and pre-development scenario. We’ll have our resource estimate out in the next few weeks and then will start focusing on PEA [Preliminary Economic Assessment] work as well as the permitting of an access road and camp, so that we can wrap economics around it in 2027”, Ackerman says.
“We are definitely moving into a whole new stage of development. Sometimes I think an exploration target gets taken with a bit of a grain of salt and somewhat as a promotional tool, but the one that was issued for Cisco was fairly conservative, having been prepared on only the first 40 drill holes. We are now up to 80+ drill holes and continue to intercept wide mineralisation.”
“We hope to be within the top 10 globally of largest hard rock lithium deposits and might surprise those who haven’t been paying attention.”
Global lithium supplies
Around half of the world’s lithium comes from Australia alone.
Other global competitors include Chile whose share of global extraction is forecast to fall from 23% in 2023 to 13% this year; and Argentina’s extraction forecast is set to rise from 50,000 tonnes in 2023 to 166,000 tonnes this year.
But Ackerman believes there is sufficient space in the global lithium market for everyone without causing concern to competitors.
“I think there’s plenty of room for all the special projects. We’re on the other side of the world from Australia so I don’t think ‘worried’ is the right term. We wish all lithium projects great success”, he says.
“In North America, particularly in the James Bay area of Québec, Canada, there are definitely some great projects. We are all each other’s cheerleaders and it’s always exciting when something new bursts onto the scene. It brings more attention to the area as well as to the vast quantities of critical minerals that Canada has yet to unlock into the global supply chain.”
Q2 Investor Relations Manager Jason McBride says the Cisco Project is transforming from a “really exciting discovery story” to an “economics and engineering story”.
“Last year’s exploration target gave us an estimated range of 215–329 million tonnes in the ground at a grade between 1 to 1.38% Li2O”, he says.
“While assays from our current 2026 winter drill program aren’t included in the MRE, a lot of that data that has been collected over this program will be used in the MRE.
“What Western Australia is to lithium, that’s what James Bay, Québec, can be for Canada, and most importantly, for North America. I think discoveries like ours, as well as other projects in our region, will help solidify that. The more the merrier, as it only promotes further investment in North American supply chains.”
Last December, Q2 revealed its best intercept to date and potentially the best ever drilled, according to Canaccord. It was 457.4 metres at 1.65% Li2O in drill hole 44 at the Cisco Project. In March this year, Q2 announced multiple 200+ metre intervals of continuous spodumene pegmatite, which is considered an important source of lithium.
Spodumene is so critical that the CSIRO refers to it as “Australia’s lithium mineral hero”.
Q2’s 2026 drill program is ongoing and focused on infill drilling within the mineralised zone that spans 1.5km along the northeast-southwest trending strike length identified at the Cisco Project. The current infill drill program will then be used to update the MRE, bringing resources from the inferred category into the indicated category. To date, 37,372m across 83 holes has been completed, with analytical results pending on all holes drilled in 2026.
The urgent need for lithium
Ackerman says lithium is already “very critical” and becoming increasingly more so. He continues:
“It’s almost a forward-looking criticality that would start to work its way into extreme. We just went through that vicious upswing when the market was flooded with supply and some of the demand projections were a little bit early in their making.
“But there seems to be some consensus that energy storage systems are really taking off with applications of data centres in combination with renewables. That’s the demand driver that’s really going to move the needle.
“This is in addition to the baseline EV demand, which has softened a little, but I think it will have legs. There are also lesser discussed applications such as robotics and drones.”
McBride says the last demand run-up for lithium was predicated on electric vehicles.
“There are a lot of new applications like EVs and battery energy storage, but there are also a lot of future applications that are really going to ramp that up”, he says.
“It’s everything that’s going on in AI, electrification, and even grid storage.”
Ackerman says current global events such as the Middle East war have highlighted the “fragility of supply lines” and the need to secure domestic markets. He continues:
“It really just solidifies what has been talked about for the past few years and that’s the securing of critical mineral supply chains.
“China is one of the dominant sources, certainly on the refining side as well. Some of the South Americans are coming up with projects that are different types.
“I think Western Australia has more or less written the textbooks on how to do spodumene lithium with at least 10 or 12 projects being globally renowned. That’s really been a nice blueprint for us.”
Location, location, location
McBride says the Cisco Project is in the box seat in North America as it is the closest to a rail line.
“Location wise, you won’t find a better project as far as scale and grade. We are 150km from the closest rail. And we are one of the closest projects to that rail line as far as lithium in all of Québec”, he says.
Despite Q2’s confidence, Ackerman says they are a “few years out” from delivering lithium to market.
“If all of the stars aligned perfectly, you could potentially be looking at construction by 2030 or so and production by 2032”, he says.
“We’re concentrating on getting that resource out. Put those first economics on it, work on the permitting, work on the community relations, and not get too far ahead of ourselves on what those timelines might look like.
“It’s a very exciting time to have a project of this potential scale, in that jurisdiction, in that location, with this particular commodity at this particular time.”
Write to Christine Retschlag at Mining.com.au
