Led by chairman Michael Hudson and independent director Filip Kozlowski, the board has undertaken to "identify, examine and consider all potential opportunities that could help increase shareholder value and enable Leading Edge to accelerate customer engagement in the fast-developing European battery materials industry".

Leading Edge said Monday the strategic review could result in a sale, a joint venture or spin-out of any of the company's individual assets and/or a change in the company's management structure.

No fixed timeline has been set for the review.

Vancouver-based Leading Edge owns the fully built and permitted Woxna graphite mine in Sweden, and the Bihor Sud cobalt-copper-nickel project in Romania, both of which are high-merit and unique projects within the European raw materials sector.

Woxna, mothballed since 2001 with only sporadic production since, is a unique European graphite project, ideally positioned to become an important supplier of graphite for the high-growth lithium-ion battery market. As lithium-ion batteries contain up to 20% high purity graphite in the anode, it is an increasingly critical raw material as battery manufacturing expands in Europe and elsewhere outside of China.

Hudson said the company would continue to work on positioning Leading Edge as a key player in the growing market for sustainably sourced strategic and critical raw materials, enabling a new energy paradigm for current and future generations.

Most recently, it was making strides in bench-scale tests to design and install a battery-graphite demonstration plant at the Woxna site, which would be able to produce "meaningful" quantities of lithium-ion battery anode material to prospective industrial customers.

The company's shares traded 10% or C2c higher Monday at 22c, giving it a market value of $21 million. The equity last peaked at 99c a year ago.