(Kitco News) Scotia Metals is getting ready to drill its Acadia lithium project in southwestern Nova Scotia for the first time. CEO Rodrigo Roso is betting the province’s roads, power and ports will let a modest deposit stand up as a mine.
“So what we’re doing right now is being smart about where we’ll drill,” Roso told Kitco Mining on Oct. 5.
He is optimistic on lithium, pointing to double-digit demand growth over about 15 years. Spodumene concentrate fell to roughly US$800 a tonne in 2025, which Roso called “the bottom of the market,” and he said prices have held above US$2,000 since the start of 2026. “At $2,000 it’s already economical for every single producer in the Western world,” he said, though Scotia has yet to complete its own economic assessment.
Roso said the choice of Nova Scotia ties to North America’s push to build its own critical minerals supply chain, and that potential suppliers and offtakers have taken notice. “We see a lot of interest in us moving forward with the project and building a mine here.”
Acadia spans about 372 square kilometers across 43 exploration licenses and more than 80 kilometers of prospective pegmatite trend. It surrounds Brazil Lake, Nova Scotia’s only known spodumene deposit, which Scotia does not own and which carries a historical estimate of about 10 million tonnes grading 1.2% lithium oxide. Roso said the area’s coarse-grained pegmatites resemble those in Brazil, where his team has worked. “They are very similar to what we could see in Brazil in the so-called Lithium Valley.”
Infrastructure is the bigger draw. “Here in Nova Scotia is a total different animal,” Roso said. A port with deep-sea berths sits about an hour and a half away, he said, and “we have paved roads all across the project. We have power lines very close to the project as well, and we have water available everywhere.”
Scotia’s first target is Green Wolf, less than 8 kilometers up-ice of Brazil Lake. On Aug. 27, the company reported five trains of spodumene-bearing boulders across roughly 3 kilometers by 1 kilometer, with samples grading up to 3.40% lithium oxide. On Sept. 22, it said one cluster had grown from 13 known boulders to 38, with 20 of them returning more than 1% lithium oxide and a high of 2.72%.
Boulders are not a deposit, but large, angular and unweathered ones can point to a nearby source. At Brazil Lake, the company says, spodumene boulders have typically traveled less than a kilometer. Scotia is using till sampling and ground geophysics to locate the source at Green Wolf.
A 1,500-meter scout program could start at the end of 2026 or early in 2027. “So for us, success is hitting those pegmatites, these first pegmatites, and start seeing that this is a project that we can grow resource on top of it,” Roso said. Because pegmatites “usually come in swarms,” he expects early holes to start shaping a geological model, with about 7,500 meters of follow-up drilling planned for 2027. “So Q1 2027, we do expect to have first results on the drilling program.”
Roso said infrastructure also lowers the bar on deposit size. “We actually don’t need massive resource for that project to become economical,” he said. He considers anything above 1% lithium oxide excellent, and said an open-pit deposit grading around 1% to 1.2% “could certainly be economical at 20 million tons probably.” Acadia has no mineral resource yet.
Scotia formed through a business combination completed in July, alongside a C$5.8 million financing. Its chairman, Brian Talbot, and director Nick Rowley helped build Galaxy Resources, whose assets ended up in Rio Tinto’s lithium business.
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