TSX-V-listed Granite Creek Copper has entered into an agreement to acquire the Lucky Ship molybdenum property, in the traditional territory of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation in central British Columbia.

The company has the option to acquire the project by issuing 3.75-million shares over a three-year period and completing exploration work equivalent to two years’ worth of assessment credit during the first two years of the agreement and four years’ worth of assessment credit in the third year of the agreement to maintain the mineral claims in good standing.

“The addition of the LS molybdenum project to our portfolio of critical minerals fits our strategy of value creation in the critical minerals space in safe political jurisdictions, focused on projects that show district-scale potential and are under-explored,” said president and CEO Tim Johnson.

The LS molybdenum project is complementary to Granite Creek’s preliminary economic assessment- (PEA-) stage Carmacks copper/gold/silver project where it has expanded the resource by 43% since acquisition and recently delivered a robust PEA in January, highlighting the potential at that high-grade copper/gold/silver project.

“While we remain focused on advancing and expanding Carmacks, we see an excellent opportunity for creating significant shareholder value with the LS molybdenum project during a time with few advanced stage molybdenum projects in the global pipeline and recent molybdenum prices trading at multi-decade highs due to the scarcity of supply in the market,” said Johnson.

The Canadian government has identified molybdenum as a critical mineral. It is used to strengthen steel and has a wide variety of other technical uses in the green economy for high-strength, low-weight applications, such as wind turbines, electrical vehicle components and solar panels.

Citing the International Energy Agency, Granite Creek says demand for molybdenum will increase by at least 2.9 times by 2040.

“Having a resource stage molybdenum asset in North America with potential to significantly grow puts Granite Creek in an excellent position to identify potential industrial partners in search of secure future supplies of molybdenum,” said Johnson.

The project hosts a historical National Instrument 43-101 molybdenum resource consisting of 65.66-million tonnes averaging 0.064% molybdenum containing 92.6-million pounds of molybdenum in the indicated category with an additional 10.24-million tonnes averaging 0.054% molybdenum containing 12.2-million pounds in the Inferred category.