Brazil’s legislative overhaul in lithium export regulations has transformed the country into a burgeoning hub for lithium production, unlocking vast economic potential and attracting global investments.
“Thanks to a legislative change made four years ago regarding lithium exports, we can now transform this mineral asset into an economic resource,” Fernando Passalio, secretary of state for economic development of Minas Gerais, told S&P Global Commodity Insights.
LONDON, Dec 10 (Reuters) – Many lithium mines, led by Chinese operators, are maintaining production of the raw material needed for electric vehicle (EV) batteries, in defiance of prices weak enough to trigger mass output cuts – providing a boon for battery makers.
The continued production raises the prospect of years of oversupply and of weak prices. Some battery makers own mines or have injected cash into operations to keep them operational, company reports show.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/
E-One Moli says it is focusing on Taiwanese production before expansion abroad
A $1-billion lithium-ion battery cell production plant that was planned for Maple Ridge, B.C., has been shelved. The parent company, Taiwan Cement Corp., announced the construction of the Canadian plant with much fanfare last year, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier David Eby attending and promising a combined $284.5 million in government funding.
Taiwan Cement Corp. company chairman Nelson Chang is quoted in a statement saying that the plant construction has stopped in order to focus on Taiwanese production, in step with other battery makers suspending similar projects across North America.
President-elect Donald Trump has announced that his administration will pursue a path toward “US energy dominance”. He emphasized that “America is blessed with vast amounts of ‘Liquid Gold’ and other valuable minerals and resources,” declaring, “We will ‘DRILL BABY DRILL.’”
Achieving energy dominance will necessitate substantial quantities of minerals, ranging from tungsten in exploration drill bits to copper in electrical transmission lines. Crucially, this goal also requires secure mineral supply chains.
Apart from oil, Angola is also rich in minerals, including cobalt and lithium, which are essential for making batteries for electric vehicles.
Joe Biden has begun his long-anticipated maiden visit to sub-Saharan Africa as US president but it comes amidst uncertainty over future US-Africa relations as Donald Trump prepares to succeed him in January.
Biden’s visit to oil-rich Angola seeks to underline an attempt by America to focus more on trade and heavy investment in infrastructure, in what some analysts see as the most direct counter yet to China’s influence on the continent.
Is Western Australia’s once-booming nickel industry dead or just a sleeping giant? Thousands of job losses this year marked the bleakest period in the local industry’s history, which dates back to the 1960s.
In those days, the discovery of nickel literally put the Goldfields town of Kambalda on the map, leading to the development of the country’s first nickel mine while the Vietnam War drove demand for this key ingredient of stainless steel.
More than 2 miles across and nearly 2,000 feet deep, the mining operation in a social media photo has replaced any flora that might have once inhabited the now barren landscape. Nothing but soil and stone is visible until the horizon meets the sky.
In an apparent attempt to disparage the renewable energy transition, the post showcasing the image wrongly asserts the devastation was caused by mining for lithium – a key ingredient in electric car and grid storage batteries. In reality, the post shows a gold mine and is one of a suite of false claims about lithium mining USA TODAY has debunked.
https://www.northernminer.com/
Lithium Argentina is seeking to redomicile to Switzerland and change its name to Lithium Argentina AG following a corporate review and a new agreement with investor Ganfeng Lithium, the company said Friday.
The company decided Switzerland was the best jurisdiction on strategic, commercial and legal grounds, would provide expanded financing flexibility, and support its long-term growth plans. It also aims to move the Lithium Argentina group of companies’ operational headquarters to Buenos Aires.
https://source.benchmarkminerals.com/
In the alliance between President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk stands the pending electric vehicle (EV) battery boom in the US. Lithium ion batteries are a new mega-industry in-waiting sparked by $110 billion of Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) money.
Three years ago, while China dominated, the US was a bystander in this global battery arms race with only a handful of gigafactories producing batteries for domestic EV production. Today, 40 super-sized battery plants span the country in stages of construction that will soon employ up to 4,000 American workers and spark over 50,000 related jobs per site.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/
Bolivia’s government and Chinese consortium CBC, which includes battery manufacturer CATL, have signed an agreement for CBC to build two direct lithium extraction plants for at least $1 billion, government authorities said on Tuesday.
The government will take a 51% stake in the project, to be located in the Uyuni salt flat in southwest Bolivia, within the so-called lithium triangle shared with Chile and Argentina. The two plants together are intended to produce 35,000 metric tons of lithium a year, said Omar Alarcon, head of state-run lithium company YLB.
Donald Trump has described the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) as a “green scam” and vowed to repeal it after he returns to the White House in January. This is bad news for sectors such as electric vehicles (EV) and wind power, which have been major recipients of the Biden administration’s signature $369 billion energy transition legislation.
But some of the “new green deal” money has also been channeled to the US industrial base, such as the $75 million allocated for an upgrade of Constellium’s aluminum rolling mill in West Virginia.
New Caledonia is home to thousands of species found nowhere else—and to nickel that companies like Tesla
This story was produced with support from the Rainforest Journalism Fund in partnership with the Pulitzer Center.
In September, 2020, Elon Musk and a Tesla executive named Drew Baglino put on matching T-shirts and took the stage in a California parking lot. To mark what the company called Battery Day, Tesla had gathered an audience of shareholders, who were social distancing by sitting separately in gleaming electric cars.
Some of the company’s new batteries, Musk and Baglino announced, contained far more nickel than previous models; as a result, they could travel farther, and at far less cost, on a single charge. “Increasing nickel is a goal of ours and, really, everybody’s in the battery industry,” Baglino said.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Gus Carlson is a U.S.-based columnist for The Globe and Mail.
Just weeks after a discovery that could transform humble Arkansas into an unexpected global powerhouse in a green-tech future, the state is learning the hard way that, as in life and love, when it comes to lithium, timing is everything.
A study released last month by the U.S. Geological Survey and the Arkansas Department of Energy and Environment revealed a huge deposit of lithium – the essential element in batteries for electric vehicles – in a limestone aquifer known as the Smackover Formation in the southwestern section of the state.
MOUNTAIN VIEW COUNTY – Mountain View County has approved a request by Calgary-based E3 Lithium Ltd. for an option to purchase the land at the former Dyck Gravel Pit east of Highway 2.
In a news release issued Thursday, E3 Lithium Ltd. said the site southeast of Olds will be used for the company’s Clearwater Project’s Central Processing Facility. The property is “well situated for infrastructure, including accessible utilities and roadways, to support E3 Lithium’s development of the first commercial lithium facility in Western Canada.”
(Bloomberg) — Indonesia is squeezing supplies of nickel ore to protect smaller local miners as the market for the battery metal endures a prolonged slump, according to Eramet SA.
The French miner, which operates the world’s largest nickel mine in Indonesia’s North Maluku province, was this year given a sales quota by the Asian nation that was 29% less than it expected, causing its share price to plunge in October.
