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Lithium

Sibanye walks away from Rhyolite Ridge lithium project on weak prices – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – February 26, 2025)

https://www.mining.com/

South African precious metals miner Sibanye-Stillwater (JSE: SSW)(NYSE: SBSW) has scrapped its planned investment in the Rhyolite Ridge lithium-boron project in the US state of Nevada, due in part to weak prices for the battery metal.

In 2021, Sibanye reached an agreement with Australia’s ioneer Ltd (ASX: INR) to form a joint venture for the project. The Johannesburg-based company was set to invest $490 million for a 50% stake, contingent on various conditions, including a final investment decision by its board.

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How one community in Chile is blessed and cursed with lithium – by John Bartlett (NPR.org – February 23, 2025)

https://www.npr.org/

ATACAMA DESERT, Chile — At the top of a craggy path in Socaire, a hilltop village deep in Chile’s Atacama Desert, a black flag whips in the wind above Jeanette Cruz’s house. The desert sun has bleached it to a dark gray blur, but the defiance it represents remains strong.

Above each house in the village, shimmering in the evening sun, these black flags represent the Indigenous Lickanantay people’s resistance to the lithium mining that many say is tearing their communities apart. The lithium in the brine beneath the brilliant white Atacama salt flat, which stretches out across the valley floor, has become a global resource.

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After Chinese company divested from Calgary lithium firm, mystery firm stepped in – by Darryl Greer (Canadian Press/CBC News Calgary – February 20, 2025)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/

Application filed for order directing Gator Capital Ltd. to dispose of shares in Lithium Chile

The federal government is going to court to force a Toronto company to sell a $34-million stake in a Calgary-based lithium firm that it bought off a Chinese company.

The government had already deemed the previous Chinese owner’s investment in Lithium Chile Inc. to be harmful to national security, and it says in a Federal Court application that the new buyer has failed to co-operate with efforts to prove it isn’t owned or influenced by China’s government either.

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Rio Tinto clears final hurdles for $6.7B Arcadium Lithium buy – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – February 14, 2025)

https://www.mining.com/

Rio Tinto has secured all regulatory approvals to proceed with its $6.7 billion acquisition of Arcadium Lithium, with the transaction set to close in early March.

The US-based lithium producer confirmed on Friday that Australia, Canada, China, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and the United States have approved the deal under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976.

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Exclusive: China’s BYD holds mining rights in Brazil’s Lithium Valley, documents show – by Fabio Teixeira (Reuters – February 14, 2025)

https://www.reuters.com/

RIO DE JANEIRO-Chinese electric carmaker BYD acquired mineral rights for two plots of land in a lithium-rich part of Brazil in 2023, entering the mining business in its biggest market outside of China, according to public records reviewed by Reuters.

The EV producer’s acquisition of mineral rights in Brazil is its most concrete step so far toward mining strategic minerals in the Western Hemisphere. The previously unreported acquisition of the mineral rights in late 2023 was made by BYD subsidiary Exploracao Mineral do Brasil, which was created in May of that year, documents showed.

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B.C.’s $50M lithium refinery aims to break China’s grip – by Nelson Bennett (Business In Vancouver – February 13, 2025)

https://www.biv.com/

Construction on Mangrove Lithium facility in Delta to begin soon

In 2023, global demand for lithium-ion batteries was forecasted to grow sixfold—from 0.7 terawatt hours to 4.7 terawatt hours—by 2030, driven largely by demand from electric vehicles.

For North America, Japan and Europe, one of the challenges in EV and battery manufacturing will be producing enough battery grade lithium to meet the demand in EV growth, especially now that China has made moves to restrict the export of lithium refining technology.

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Quebec junior miners pocket more than $43 million in federal critical minerals funding – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – February 7, 2025)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

James Bay explorers cash in to carry out studies on road, power and innovation projects

Ottawa wants Canada to be the lead dog when it comes to developing and expanding its critical minerals value chain. That’s why the federal government is ponying up $43.5 million to advance road, power and research projects in Quebec.

Mining proponents on the eastern side of the James Bay region and northern Quebec were the recipients this week of a stream of program funding through the federal government’s critical minerals strategy. Federal Energy and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson delivered the news on Feb.6.

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Australian lithium player selects new site for proposed Thunder Bay refinery – by Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – February 5, 2025)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Green Technology Metals tests lithium sample in South Korea to develop a product for the electric vehicle market

An aspiring Australian lithium producer in northwestern Ontario is eyeing a new site in Thunder Bay to place a refinery. Green Technology Metals is scoping out a brownfield on the city’s waterfront to evaluate its suitability to host a lithium chemical conversion plant.

The Perth-headquartered has shifted focus away from the former Cascades Paper plant property in the city’s north end to the Midcontinent Terminal property on Maureen Street in the centre of the city, near a grouping of grain elevators.

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Bolivia’s Lithium Window Is Closing Rapidly – by Joseph Bouchard (Real Clear World – February 2025)

https://www.realclearworld.com/

In 2023, Bolivia signed multi-billion dollar deals for lithium extraction with Chinese and Russian state-owned companies, including the CBC consortium and Rosatom/Uranium One. Since then, despite these deals expanding further, very little progress has been made, with extraction and production stalling despite promises from all stakeholders about “rapid industrialization.”

Given Bolivia’s increasingly friendly relationship with American adversaries, the continuous problems plaguing Bolivia’s mining sector, and the growing alternatives for lithium development, it may be time for the U.S. and other democratic states to look elsewhere.

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Saudi Arabia of lithium: The future of mining in Afghanistan and Pakistan – by Gordon Feller (Canadian Mining Journal – December 19, 2024)

https://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

Afghanistan and Pakistan possess significant mineral resources that have attracted China’s interest. This fact has shaped what China does to grow its broader economic and geopolitical strategy in the region. This article provides a short survey, for both countries, of the mineral deposits, current mining production, and China’s efforts to increase its influence.

Afghanistan’s mineral resources

Afghanistan is estimated to have mineral deposits worth up to US$1 trillion, including vast reserves of copper, iron, gold, lithium, and rare earth elements. Some of the key mineral resources include the following:

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Winsome Resources begins permitting for Adina lithium project in northern Quebec – by Staff (Canadian Mining Journal – January 27, 2025)

https://www.canadianminingjournal.com/

Australia-based Winsome Resources (ASX: WR1) – a lithium exploration and development company – has submitted the preliminary information statement for its Adina Lithium Mining project with the proper provincial authorities that oversee mining project developments located in self-governing Indigenous communities in Northern Quebec that are signatories to the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement (JBNQA).

Winsome’s filing represents a milestone as it formally commences the provincial regulatory process in the James Bay region associated with permitting the proposed mine at Adina, as well as the proposed modifications to the Renard operation. Indigenous communities in the region refer to the James Bay region as Eeyou Istchee.

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Nevada’s Lithium Could Help Save the Earth. But What Happens to Nevada? – by Meg Bernhard (New York Times – January 24, 2025)

https://www.nytimes.com/

Many climate experts see its deserts as a place to build the green-energy future. For two local activists, the price is too great.

Few Americans follow the nation’s lithium-mining industry as closely as Patrick Donnelly. Since 2021, he has set up 30 or so Google Alerts for variations on the word “lithium,” and he uses the findings to populate an online map of projects across the West. It is so useful that one industry insider has referred to it as “an investor’s handbook.”

This is paradoxical: Donnelly, who works at an environmental nonprofit called the Center for Biological Diversity, is one of the industry’s most vigilant watchdogs. The true spirit of his monitoring and mapping efforts comes through in a Twitter exchange he had with one mining firm, Rover Critical Minerals, a few years ago.

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Chile Keeps Faith in Lithium Expansion Even as Glut Worsens – by James Attwood (Bloomberg News – January 23, 2025)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Chile, home to the world’s biggest lithium reserves, is confident that investors will compete for licenses to drill new deposits even amid a worsening global glut that’s squeezing the battery-metal industry.

“We’re convinced that there’s interest,” Mining Minister Aurora Williams said in an interview late Wednesday — a day before Chile warned that global oversupply is set to increase this year, despite some industry cutbacks.

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Bolivia steps up lithium dealmaking despite growing opposition – by Sergio Mendoza and James Attwood(Bloomberg News – January 21, 2025)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Bolivia is stepping up efforts to tap the world’s biggest lithium deposits, readying deals with new investors to build processing plants despite low prices and growing opposition from lawmakers and citizen groups.

The Andean nation opened its first industrial-scale plant in late 2023, built by a Chinese group, and last year signed deals for further investments with Russia’s Uranium One Group and a Chinese consortium, which are awaiting congressional approval.

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Russia Targets Ukraine’s Key Lithium Reserves – by Wojtek Grojeck and Kian Sharifi (Radio Free Europe – January 2025)

https://www.rferl.org/

Russia has captured two of Ukraine’s four lithium deposits since it launched its all-out invasion in 2022, potentially depriving Kyiv of a key economic resource.

On January 11, Russia claimed to have seized control of Shevchenko, a rural settlement in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. The settlement sits on top of one of Ukraine’s biggest lithium deposits.

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