The Tanco mine, one of Canada’s two lithium producers, hopes to expand against the odds
Ottawa surprised the mining world with its decision in November to bar three Chinese companies from buying stakes in Canada’s lithium businesses due to national security concerns.
Since then, investments from Chinese miners into Canadian companies that own properties containing minerals, such as lithium, copper or nickel, that are in high demand and needed for the energy transition away from fossil fuels have been unheard of.
In addition, Canada, the United States and other Western nations have taken steps to redesign their supply chains away from China, which dominates the production of critical minerals, and towards friendlier nations.
But one Chinese-owned mine in Manitoba, which until last year was Canada’s only producer of lithium, continues to produce a concentrate of the metal needed to make batteries that power electric vehicles.
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