June 22 (Reuters) – Piedmont Lithium Inc’s (PLL.O) first steps toward securing lithium supplies will be in Quebec or Ghana, not the United States, as an intensifying North Carolina regulatory review delays the miner’s goal of anchoring America’s electric vehicle battery renaissance.
The delay has forced Piedmont to expand its strategy beyond its proposed North Carolina mine – a project it has touted as the best way to help secure American energy independence, but one that now faces a regulatory quagmire – and fund mines abroad.
“We think two of our projects will happen faster than our Carolina Lithium project: Quebec and Ghana,” said Chief Executive Keith Phillips. “The (North Carolina) regulators are doing a very good job. It’s a rigorous process. It’ll happen when it happens.”
Piedmont was founded in 2016 in Australia but moved its headquarters last year to North Carolina, where it hopes to dig a 500-foot-deep (150 m-deep) open-pit mine in a $988 million project that would be one of the largest U.S. lithium mines.
For the rest of this article: https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/piedmont-lithium-looks-abroad-amid-north-carolina-uncertainty-2022-06-22/