The Karibib lithium project appears to have had an extraordinary run of bad luck, passing through a succession of owners and surviving weak lithium prices, financing problems, a contractual dispute, corporate administration, a bitter disagreement between its majority and Namibian minority shareholders and, most recently, the collapse of a rescue deal after a stock exchange approval failed to arrive before the deadline.
Another company is now preparing to try where others have struggled, with newly incorporated British company African Critical Elements Limited (ACE) seeking to acquire the project from the remnants of Lepidico and revive development of the historic Rubicon and Helikon deposits.
The proposed transaction is before the Namibian Competition Commission (NaCC), which held a stakeholders’ conference on the acquisition last week. Commission records show ACE was incorporated specifically as a holding company to acquire the Lepidico assets and raise financing to develop Karibib.
If completed, ACE will inherit a project whose main challenge has never been finding lithium. Successive owners have established sizeable resources and carried out extensive technical work, but turning those resources into a sustainably financed mining operation has repeatedly proved difficult.
Lepidico’s 2022 estimate put Karibib’s Mineral Resource at 11.87 million tonnes grading 0.45% lithium oxide across Rubicon and Helikon, with potentially valuable rubidium, caesium and tantalum also present.
Mining around Rubicon and Helikon stretches back decades, with intermittent small-scale operations from the 1930s through the 1990s targeting minerals including petalite, beryl and tantalite.
Ownership subsequently passed through several hands.
SWA Lithium operated the properties under the Klochner/Metramco structure before selling them around 1990 to Namibia Lithium Mines, associated with South Africa’s Afmin. Australian company Sunrise Minerals later took over the project.
Another change came in 2009 when Black Fire Minerals acquired the Namibian company controlling the exploration licences for about A$455,000, gaining access to the historic Rubicon, Helikon and Fricke’s workings.
Karibib later passed to Desert Lion Energy, which attempted to turn the old mining district into a modern lithium operation as international interest in battery minerals increased.
Desert Lion gets lithium to China
Desert Lion came closer than many predecessors to establishing a visible lithium business.
In 2018, it exported approximately 30,000 tonnes of lithium-bearing material recovered from historical stockpiles to China under an offtake arrangement with Jiangxi Jinhui Lithium.
The company intended to ship more as it developed the underlying deposits and secured Mining Licence 204 in 2018.
The timing proved difficult. Lithium prices weakened, Desert Lion’s financial position deteriorated, and the company suspended shipments while seeking additional capital.
Those problems eventually resulted in another ownership change when Lepidico acquired Desert Lion in July 2019.
The Desert Lion period nevertheless left behind a problem that would follow Karibib for years. Its Chinese offtake relationship subsequently became the subject of a contractual dispute.
Lepidico arrived with considerably larger ambitions and renamed the Namibian operating company Lepidico Chemicals Namibia.
Rather than simply exporting lithium-bearing material, its strategy envisaged mining and concentrating ore at Karibib before feeding it into a downstream chemical-processing operation using Lepidico’s proprietary technology to produce higher-value lithium products.
Lepidico drilled the deposits, expanded the geological database, conducted metallurgical work and advanced feasibility studies, eventually reporting the 11.87-million-tonne resource.
Technical progress, however, did not solve the project’s financing problem.
As lithium prices weakened, raising the substantial capital required became increasingly difficult. By September 2024, Lepidico had appointed Jefferies International to examine strategic alternatives, including finding a minority equity investor or selling Karibib outright.
The process failed to secure the funding required to preserve the existing structure, and Lepidico entered voluntary administration in December 2024.
Karibib once again had established resources and considerable technical work behind it, but no owner could finance construction.
The 20% shareholder
Alongside the financial difficulties and Chinese arbitration, another dispute involved Huni-Urib Holdings, the Namibian-linked company owning the remaining 20% of Lepidico Chemicals Namibia.
Huni-Urib’s interest predates Lepidico. Desert Lion’s 2018 technical report recorded the project company as 80% owned by Desert Lion and 20% by Huni-Urib, an ownership structure that continued after Lepidico acquired Desert Lion.
As Lepidico’s financial difficulties deepened and it sought a buyer or investor, relations between the shareholders deteriorated over management of the asset, historical mineral revenues, development obligations and attempts to dispose of the controlling interest.
In correspondence to Namibian authorities during 2025, Huni-Urib alleged that revenues associated with Desert Lion’s earlier lithium transaction had been retained through offshore structures, that Namibia had lost potential tax and royalty income and that the minority shareholder had not received dividends it believed were due from the 2018 shipment.
It also challenged attempts to dispose of the controlling interest without what it regarded as proper consultation.
Lepidico Chemicals Namibia rejected allegations that money had been unlawfully diverted or mineral revenues had bypassed Namibia, saying the claims were unsubstantiated and had not been established by a competent authority. It maintained that it received revenue from the first shipment into its Namibian bank account.
The competing claims remain disputed.
A rescue that nearly happened
Meanwhile, the old Jiangxi Jinhui dispute proceeded to arbitration before the Singapore International Arbitration Centre, with a determination eventually received in December 2025.
By then, International Lithium Corporation, through ILC Critical Minerals, had secured an option over the Lepidico entity controlling the 80% Karibib interest.
It continued pursuing the transaction into 2026 and paid approximately N$1.7 million to extend its option until 27 February while outstanding requirements were addressed.
International Lithium ultimately said it wanted to proceed and had funding available, apparently putting Karibib close to another ownership change.
But the transaction collapsed.
Karibib did not obtain the required Toronto Venture Exchange approval before the option expired, and the exchange also prevented International Lithium from providing additional working capital that could have kept the option alive.
Karibib therefore lost another prospective owner, this time not because the buyer had rejected the geology or failed to find the money, but because regulatory approval had not arrived before the deadline.
Now it is African Critical Elements’ turn.
ACE was incorporated in Britain in February 2026 and is seeking to acquire Lepidico Holdings (Canada), which holds the controlling Namibian interests.
The new bidder is not entirely separate from the failed International Lithium attempt.
Information presented during the Namibian competition process indicates that International Lithium chairman John Wisbey and director Maurice Brooks established ACE after the previous transaction fell through.
NaCC records indicate that ACE is not currently operational in Namibia and was created as a holding company to acquire the target entities and raise the financing required to develop Karibib.
The proposed new owner intends to restart exploration and drilling while seeking funding for mineral processing.
