White Gold in Nevada 

Cell phones, electric vehicles, solar panels, computers, and those “quiet” lawnmowers that your weird neighbor has all require batteries made from raw materials that come from countries such as China, Chile, and Australia. Lithium is one of these raw materials and is one of the most important materials that goes into batteries. The United States has only one active lithium mine (despite being home to about 3.6% of the world’s lithium deposits). This pretty much means that the United States is reliant on other countries for battery materials just like you are reliant on the weather app in the club. The U.S. has realized it is overly dependent on countries such as China for its battery materials and is currently attempting to source these materials domestically. 

That brings us to today’s rainmaker – So buckle up, because we got a hot one in the battery and raw materials space.

American Battery Technology Company (OTC: ABML) is an up-and-coming lithium-ion recycling and raw material manufacturing company based out of the place to be for lithium mining – Reno, Nevada. American Battery Technology Company “ABTC” specializes in the breakdown of end-of-life batteries (like from your Aunt’s Prius) and the conversion of these batteries into raw materials. The raw materials from these batteries (lithium, cobalt, manganese, and nickel) are withdrawn using a proprietary method and are then sold back into the market (as illustrated here for the nerds). The market is frantically in need of these raw materials, just like you are in need of triple 7’s at the slots to break even on the company trip. Not only does ABTC specialize in the recycling of battery materials, but it also sources lithium from locations that the company owns the claims to. The company holds approximately 10,340 acres of land in northern Nevada that it intends to explore and mine for lithium.

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In early 2022, geological surveys found lithium in the ground at the Tonopah Flats site (sending ABTC to the ceiling).

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The company has recently received approval to continue drilling tests/extracting samples for lithium at the Tonopah Flats site (one of the biggest in Nevada). ABTC also received a $115 million dollar award in October 2022 from the Department of Energy to construct commercial-scale facilities to process batteries. Thus, it is only a matter of time until the company can extract the high-in-demand lithium to complement their growing battery recycling business.

Not only do we like ABTC for their strategic location, unique extraction process, and support from the DOE, but the 96’ Chicago Bulls management team gets us more excited than pocket aces.  

Ryan Melsert is the CEO of ABTC who left Tesla where he was R&D Manager of Battery Material Processing and a top 1% performer company-wide. The COO, Andrés Meza (Harvard MBA) formerly worked at Apple as a Global Supply Manager and the company recently hired Chief Financial Officer Jesse Deutsch (Wharton and NYU Grad) demonstrating an exceptionally talented management team.

With the hall of fame team at the helm, support from the Department of Energy, and land that is full of white gold, it goes without saying this stock is definitely on our radar.