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Lithium

Lithium, Nickel Miners Get $110 Million Boost From US Defense Department – by Joe Deaux (Bloomberg News – September 12, 2023)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Albemarle Corp. and Talon Metals Corp. are getting about $110 million in new US government funding to support the expansion of domestic mining of lithium and nickel, two metals critical to the nation’s energy transition.

Albemarle, the world’s largest lithium producer, will get $90 million to help support the miner’s planned reopening of its Kings Mountain, North Carolina lithium mine. Nickel miner Talon Metals will get $20.6 million to advance exploration of its Tamarack Intrusive Complex in Minnesota. The agreements, under the Defense Production Act, were announced Tuesday by the Defense Department.

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Nipigon-area lithium digger scouting for North American refinery site – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – September 8, 2023)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Rock Tech Lithium considering Ontario, northern U.S. to place lithium hydroxide conversion plant

Rock Tech Lithium, a future mine builder in the Lake Nipigon area, is scouting locations in Ontario and the northern U.S. to site a lithium processing plant.The company, with both Canadian and German ties, has already broken ground on its first lithium refinery in Guben, Germany, and is now planning for its second facility for North America.

On its plans for a second plant, Rock Tech hinted this week on its LinkedIn account – after meeting with provincial Economic Development Minister Vic Fedeli at a conference in Munich – that news is coming, pertaining to its “home market in Ontario,” where its Georgia Lake lithium property is located.

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Alberta enters global lithium race with opening of first extraction pilot project – by Amanda Stephenson (Toronto Star – September 7, 2023)

https://www.thestar.com/

Alberta’s first lithium pilot project opens

Canadian Press – OLDS, Alta. – Alberta got out of the starting gates in the global critical minerals race Thursday with the opening of the province’s first lithium extraction pilot project.

At his company’s site just east of the town of Olds in central Alberta, E3 Lithium CEO Chris Doornbos called the occasion the start of a “new era” for the province’s traditionally oil-and-gas-dominated economy. “Without forsaking our past, the lithium industry opens up a whole new industry, using our existing skill set,” Doornbos said.

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Major lithium exploration announced for Manitoba – by Martin Cash (Winnipeg Free Press – September 6, 2023)

https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/

In the coming year, New Age Metals is planning to undertake the largest lithium exploration program ever in Manitoba. The company has just announced $7 million in exploration, teaming up with the Australia company Mineral Resources Ltd., one of the top five lithium producers in the world.

The exploration project will include 15,000 metres of diamond drilling as well as all sorts of geophysical surveys including soil and rock geochemical sampling grids and mapping/prospecting. New Age is looking to capitalize on the current high level of interest in lithium development in Canada, something that most believe is essential for the development of a North American supply chain for the coming dominance of the electric vehicle.

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Lithium Players Race for Breakthrough to Meet Electric Car Demand – by James Attwood and Yvonne Yue Li (Bloomberg News – August 30, 2023)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — On the outskirts of El Dorado — heart of Arkansas’ 1920s oil boom — a company backed by Koch Industries Inc. is looking to dramatically speed up extraction of a battery metal essential to weaning the world off fossil fuels, while proving naysayers wrong in the process.

Standard Lithium Ltd. is working on the breakthrough inside a white warehouse near a massive chemical factory run by Germany’s Lanxess AG that feeds brackish wastewater into the facility. A cluster of pipes and tanks in the demonstration plant turn brine into a lithium compound within days instead of the year or more that traditional recovery methods take.

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Lithium revival a dead cat bounce as prices slump to 20-month low – by Frik Els (Mining.com – August 30, 2023)

https://www.mining.com/

The lithium market has been in turmoil with dramatic rises and falls in prices over the last five years as demand from electric cars take off and global supply growth struggles to keep up.

In its latest market assessment for the two weeks ending August 23, Benchmark Mineral Intelligence tracks an eye-popping 10.7% sequential decline in its lithium index, a sales weighted measure of global prices across grades.

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The key ingredient to millions of EVs is buried under a former volcano — but there’s still a lot we don’t know – by Justine Calma (The Verge – August 30, 2023)

https://www.theverge.com/

The company constructing a controversial new lithium mine to supply GM’s electric vehicles knows where it wants to drill next based on new research it published today.

Lithium Americas broke ground on its mine at Thacker Pass in Nevada after facing fierce opposition from Native American tribes, environmental advocates, and local ranchers. But that mine is just one slice of the McDermitt Caldera, the remnants of a supervolcano that’s now believed to hold one of the biggest lithium deposits in the world.

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E3 to test whether it can get lithium from abandoned oil fields in first for Canada – by Naimul Karim (Financial Post – August 30, 2023)

https://financialpost.com/

CEO predicts direct lithium extraction process will dominate the industry

The technology that isolates lithium from brine solution without the need for traditional evaporation methods wasn’t something Chris Doornbos was keen on when he founded E3 Lithium Ltd. in 2016.

But seven years on, the chief executive predicts the direct lithium extraction (DLE) process, which is yet to be commercially used by miners outside China, will dominate an industry looking to boost supplies of the metal to meet the rising demand for electric vehicles (EVs) in the next few years.

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A worldwide lithium shortage could come as soon as 2025 – by Lee Ying Shan (CNBC.com – August 29, 2023)

https://www.cnbc.com/

The world could face a shortage for lithium as demand for the metal ramps up, with some analysts forecasting that it could come as soon as 2025. Others, however, see a longer time frame before that shortfall hits.

BMI, a Fitch Solutions research unit, was among those that predict a lithium supply deficit by 2025. In a recently published report, BMI largely attributed the deficit to China’s lithium demand exceeding that of its supply. “We expect an average of 20.4% year-on-year annual growth for China’s lithium demand for EVs alone over 2023-2032,” the report stated.

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China buys half of the lithium mines on the market – by Elouise Fowler (Australian Financial Review – August 27, 2023)

https://www.afr.com/

Half of the world’s biggest lithium mines put on the market since 2018 were bought by Chinese companies, underscoring the tightening grip of the world’s second-largest economy over the global battery metal supply chain.

But a closer look suggests national interest arguments are posing a hurdle to future deals where the United States and its allies are concerned, pushing China deeper into emerging markets for new sources of the coveted raw material.

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Municipal leaders talk future ‘billion-dollar’ lithium industry in Thunder Bay, Ont., at AMO conference – by Sarah Law (CBC News Thunder Bay – August 24, 2023)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/

Leaders in Thunder Bay, Ont., voiced some of the city’s top priorities at the Association of Municipalities Ontario’s (AMO) annual general meeting and conference this week. The conference gives municipal leaders the chance to meet with provincial ministers and raise local concerns at a larger level in the hopes of getting more support.

The city sent Coun. Kristen Oliver and Coun. Shelby Ch’ng — chair and vice-chair, respectively, of the intergovernmental affairs committee — along with mayor Ken Boshcoff and city manager Norm Gale to London, Ont., to participate in a marathon of meetings.

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Frenzy of Foreign Suitors Wooing Australian Lithium Miners (Asia Financial – August 23, 2023)

https://www.asiafinancial.com/

The deals mania comes as Australia undertakes a critical minerals strategy that envisages major collaborations with investors and global partners to become a renewables superpower

Emerging Australian lithium companies have seen a surge of buyouts from suitors seeking to secure cheaper supplies of electric-vehicle battery materials.

Companies such as Albemarle Corp, the biggest lithium producer, have been seeking buys in Australia, which makes the most lithium in the world and has more than 80 lithium-related companies listed on its main stock exchange. Their interest has been driven by falling prices for the commodity and a move by major producer Chile to nationalise its lithium industry earlier this year.

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Lithium Craze Sparks 1,100% Stock Gains as Well as Deep Losses – by Georgina McKay and James Fernyhough (Yahoo News/Bloomberg – August 22, 2023)

https://ca.news.yahoo.com/

(Bloomberg) — Investors who bought Australian lithium stocks at the start of the year could have doubled their money or lost more than half of it — reflecting the extreme volatility of companies mining one of the world’s hottest commodities.

Lithium mining is dominated by small and mid-sized firms in Australia, the world’s No.1 producer of the critical electric vehicle battery ingredient. Previously unknown companies have soared in value after striking large deposits of lithium-bearing spodumene, mainly in Western Australia, while others have sputtered on uncertainty.

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Sayona advances planning for Quebec lithium carbonate plant – by Silvia Pikal (CIM Magazine – August 21, 2023)

https://magazine.cim.org/en/

NAL is set to become the only lithium operation with a concentrator and carbonate plant all on the same site in North America

Australian miner Sayona Mining Limited announced it is moving forward with the restart of a lithium carbonate production plant at its North American Lithium (NAL) operation in Quebec, bringing it closer to becoming a downstream producer of lithium chemicals.

In late June, the company released the results of a preliminary study for the standalone lithium carbonate project, outlining the production of 372,000 tonnes of battery-grade lithium carbonate from 2.9 million tonnes of spodumene concentrate from the NAL mine over a project life of 16 years. All-in sustaining costs per tonne of lithium carbonate are estimated to be $15,996.

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Stellantis invests more than $100 million in California lithium project – by Ernest Scheyder (Reuters – August 17, 2023)

https://www.reuters.com/

(Reuters) – Automaker Stellantis said it would invest more than $100 million in California’s Controlled Thermal Resources, its latest bet on the direct lithium extraction (DLE) sector amid the global hunt for new sources of the electric vehicle battery metal.

The investment by the Chrysler and Jeep parent announced on Thursday comes as the green energy transition and U.S. Inflation Reduction Act have fueled concerns that supplies of lithium and other materials may fall short of strong demand forecasts.

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