Psst - wanna buy some lithium? Here are some of the cheapest stocks on the ASX

Last week, ASX lithium stocks went gangbusters.

The groundwork was laid by a perfect storm of increasingly aggressive EV targets, rising raw material prices, and the growing sense there isn’t enough supply to go around.

Lithium shortages were supposed to start kicking in around 2023-2024, but you would swear the deficit is happening right now.

Lithium price trends over the past 3 years. Source: Benchmark.

Two things happened last week to kick this investor FOMO up a gear.

One, miner Pilbara Minerals (ASX:PLS) set the lithium sector alight with its announcement that the first auction of spodumene — a lithium precursor — had gone off at an amazing $US1,250t.

That’s well above prevailing market price, and streets ahead of the ~$US380/t spod producers were accepting last year.

US President Biden then outlined an ambitious target for half of all new vehicles sold in the US in 2030 to be zero-emissions vehicles – including battery electric, plug-in hybrid electric, or fuel cell electric vehicles.

By setting clear targets for EV sales, the world’s #1 economy is hoping to become a magnet for private investment into its manufacturing sector – and get back in the lead on clean cars and trucks.

Biden is backed by automakers Ford, GM, Stellantis and BMW. Ford, Honda, Volkswagen and Volvo have all released targets of 40-50% EV sales share by 2030.

There was a rush to the doors for lithium stock exposure. Well over 90% of the stocks on our list finished in the green.

Standout winners included:

Charger Metals (ASX:CHR) +87%

Lake Resources (ASX: LKE) +56%

Lepidico (ASX:LPD) +53%

Balkan Mining and Minerals (ASX:BMM) +41%

Lithium Energy (ASX:LEL) +39%

Vulcan Energy (ASX:VUL) +38%

Jindalee Resources (ASX:JRL) +29%

Galan Lithium (ASX:GLN) +28%

… the list goes on.

Winners & Losers

Here’s how ASX-listed lithium stocks are performing:

Scroll or swipe to reveal table. Click headings to sort. Best viewed on a laptop

Any stocks missing? Let us know at [email protected]

CODE	COMPANY	1 WEEK RETURN	1 MONTH RETURN	6 MONTH RETURN	1 YEAR RETURN	PRICE	MARKET CAP
AAJ	Aruma Resources	7	-9	-37	-34	0.059	$ 6,300,000.00
RLC	Reedy Lagoon	6	0	-6	113	0.017	$ 7,520,418.66
PAM	Pan Asia Metals	13	36	-3	-15	0.17	$ 9,100,000.00
CHR	Charger Metals	87	87			0.43	$ 13,800,000.00
ADV	Ardiden	6	12	-60	-37	0.0095	$ 17,194,833.73
BMM	Balkan Mining and Minerals	41				0.62	$ 18,525,000.00
GL1	Global Lithium	9	13			0.3	$ 23,578,612.44
LEL	Lithium Energy	39	77			0.645	$ 27,000,000.00
ESS	Essential Metals	19	45	10	62	0.16	$ 29,118,508.50
ARN	Aldoro Resources	1	16	70	280	0.475	$ 38,500,000.00
INF	Infinity Lithium	3	-17	-55	21	0.1	$ 40,291,455.60
EUR	European Lithium	21	23	3	53	0.069	$ 58,837,943.05
ASN	Anson Resources	25	35	-2	345	0.089	$ 74,223,384.29
LPI	Lithium Power International	21	54	9	58	0.315	$ 90,323,261.70
TNG	TNG Limited	3	13	-28	3	0.072	$ 92,462,780.96
LIT	Lithium Australia	13	18	-13	117	0.13	$ 113,989,594.63
LPD	Lepidico	53	92	-18	229	0.023	$ 123,041,648.92
PSC	Prospect Resources	25	47	108	188	0.375	$ 139,986,090.28
JRL	Jindalee Resources	29	26	61	825	3.14	$ 171,960,770.52
AGY	Argosy Minerals	16	26	-9	184	0.145	$ 175,038,038.56
AJM	Altura Mining	0	0	0	1	0.07	$ 209,037,029.25
EMH	European Metals	-5	-2	35	447	1.615	$ 213,350,822.60
GLN	Galan Lithium	28	34	155	767	1.3	$ 294,363,189.60
CXO	Core Lithium	24	45	8	623	0.34	$ 369,846,935.01
FFX	Firefinch	7	12	123	190	0.435	$ 391,416,472.38
NMT	Neometals	9	37	121	300	0.72	$ 394,800,000.00
PLL	Piedmont Lithium	7	-23	20	714	0.79	$ 431,137,950.00
SYA	Sayona Mining	27	11	151	1044	0.1	$ 530,062,925.02
LKE	Lake Resources	56	84	123	1761	0.67	$ 617,709,463.03
AVZ	AVZ Minerals	12	40	18	282	0.2175	$ 659,383,732.67
INR	Ioneer	13	23	17	313	0.475	$ 828,325,651.94
VUL	Vulcan Energy	38	63	49	2500	13.52	$ 1,248,554,617.24
LTR	Liontown Resources	12	13	137	690	0.9475	$ 1,826,798,630.40
GXY	Galaxy Resources	8	26	82	321	4.84	$ 2,406,987,429.28
ORE	Orocobre	6	23	75	170	8.44	$ 2,861,596,049.82
PLS	Pilbara Minerals	18	44	112	497	2.085	$ 5,860,993,963.20
IGO	IGO	5	19	54	102	9.76	$ 7,400,000,000.00
MIN	Mineral Resources	-8	3	67	113	58.28	$ 11,227,903,569.18

Who has room to run?

Here is a selection of the cheapest lithium-facing stocks on the ASX.

ARUMA RESOURCES (ASX:AAJ)

Aruma’s main game is gold, but it also has the early stage ‘Mt Deans’ lithium project near Norseman in WA.

The geology is similar to the nearby Mt Marion (Mineral Resources (ASX:MIN)), Bald Hill (US company Austroid) and Buldania (Liontown Resources (ASX:LTR)) deposits, the company says.

While explorers love to make these sorts of comparisons, Aruma is going to test the theory with a 40-hole drilling program in the New Year.

REEDY LAGOON (ASX:RLC)

The gold-iron ore focused explorer has two Nevada lithium brine projects in its back pocket: Alkali Lake North and Clayton Valley.

These projects are ~25km from the Silver Peak lithium brine operation owned by major miner Albemarle, and 360km by road from the Tesla Gigafactory in Reno.

Reedy says these lithium brine projects are on hold “until technology enables production without evaporation”.

Which there is – it’s called Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE), and all the cool kids are doing it.

PAN ASIA METALS (ASX:PAM)

In mid-July, the recently listed tungsten-lithium explorer kicked off 24-hour-a-day drilling at its ‘Reung Kiet’ project in Thailand.

“Compelling” lithium drilling results at Reung Kiet supported a move to double shift drilling, the company says.

“This will allow PAM to accelerate the additional infill and extensional drilling required in order to support the objective of estimating a Mineral Resource in accordance with the JORC Code 2012 – which is anticipated later this year.”

CHARGER METALS (ASX:CHR)

One of the ASX’s newest lithium and base metals plays made news when New York-based fund manager Lind Partners took a substantial 7.34% stake.

In late July, Charger uncovered a new lithium target at the Lake Johnston Project in WA. The company plans to fast track targeting work “to allow drilling to be undertaken at the earliest possible time”.

It also has a lithium-gold project called ‘Bynoe’ in the Northern Territory, surrounded by tenements owned by advanced project developer Core Lithium (ASX:CXO).

ARDIDEN (ASX:ADV)

Canadian gold explorer Ardiden — which spiked back when gold was cool but has since settled back to minnow status — recently reminded punters about its “strategically located high grade lithium assets”.

The explorer has inked a JV with “highly experienced lithium development team” Green Technology Metals (GTM) to explore and potentially develop its non-core lithium assets in Ontario.

GTM would progressively acquire up to 80% ownership of the lithium tenements for $9.2 million, subject to shareholder approval.

“Retaining a minimum 20% interest enables Ardiden to retain upside exposure to the battery metals market without having to deploy capital towards lithium exploration, while simultaneously providing capital for the gold exploration program at the Pickle Lake gold project,” Ardiden says.

BALKAN MINING AND MINERALS (ASX:BMM)

Balkan, recently spun out of Jadar Resources (ASX:JDR), is focused on the ‘Rekovac’ lithium project in the little-known jurisdiction of Serbia.

The project “has similar geological settings” to Rio Tinto’s world-class Jadar discovery, the company says.

The stock is currently selling for ~ 61c – a 204% gain on its IPO price of 20c per share – making it one of July’s best performing listings.

GLOBAL LITHIUM (ASX:GL1)

GL1’s main game is the ~240sqkm Marble Bar lithium project (MBLP) in WA’s Pilbara, a region which also hosts Pilbara Minerals’ (ASX:PLS) Pilgangoora operation and the Albemarle and Mineral Resources’ (ASX:MIN) Wodgina joint venture.

The company is drilling to find the edges of the 10.5 million tonne ‘Archer’ deposit, a swarm of spodumene-bearing pegmatites over a 3km by 1km zone which remains ‘open’ in all directions.

It is well funded, with $8.6m in the bank on June 30.

LITHIUM ENERGY (ASX:LEL)

Lithium Energy almost has the approvals required to hit the ground at its ‘Solaroz’ lithium brines project in Argentina.

Upon approvals being received, the newly listed Strike Resources (ASX:SRK) spinout plans to undertake an extensive work program of geophysical surveys and drilling.

Solaroz is next door to some big players, including the current production assets of Orocobre (ASX:ORE) and the advanced lithium brine development project held by Lithium Americas Corporation (NYSE:LAC).

In June, Lithium Energy established a conceptual (theoretical, not real yet) exploration target of 1.5 to 8.7 million tonnes of contained Lithium Carbonate Equivalent (LCE) based on a range of lithium concentrations of between circa 500 mg/L Lithium (Li) and 700 mg/L Li.