TOKYO — Chinese companies have splurged over $1 billion on rights over three lithium mines in Argentina in as many weeks as a race to secure supplies of the “white gold” critical to most production of electric car batteries revs up.
Argentina, which has lagged Chile and Australia in lithium output, has been reforming laws, reducing taxes and improving infrastructure with an eye toward boosting export revenues.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/
A Sudbury-based company has big plans to mine and process a mineral that is a critical part of batteries in electric vehicles and portable electronics. Frontier Lithium is exploring two lithium deposits in northwestern Ontario that have enough resources to build almost 500,000 batteries per year for electric vehicles.
“Many reference lithium ion as the gasoline of the future,” said Trevor Walker, the company’s president and CEO. “So the sky’s the limit. This is really an interesting time because as we’ve got decarbonization efforts taking place around the world, coupled with sensitive supply chains that’s been highlighted as a result of the pandemic, it’s a really interesting opportunity in front of us.”
In the mountains of northern Nevada, the fuel of the future lies in the shadow of the past. Sixteen million years ago, the area now called Thacker Pass was the site of a giant volcanic eruption … and volcanologist Tom Benson has been searching the world for places just like it. He says an eruption here millions of years ago left behind the key to unlock the electric vehicle revolution.
It’s called lithium, the lightest solid element on that chart most of us only periodically remember from high school chemistry. Rechargeable lithium ion batteries are what power our cell phones, computers, even toothbrushes, and are now the fuel for all those electric vehicles starting to roll off the assembly line.
A company in line to become Alberta’s first major lithium developer says the province’s latest move to regulate mineral and rare earth mining is good news for investors as they eye major productions in the field in the coming years.
Energy Minister Sonya Savage tabled a bill in the legislature on Thursday that, if passed, would move the regulation of all mineral and rare earth mining and development under the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) from start to finish.
Notwithstanding the actions and beliefs of current Western politicians and their economist “advisors,” I firmly believe that there is no such thing as the free lunch that masquerades as modern monetary theory.
Believing that they can create by fiat whatever capital they need, politicians, worldwide, are encouraging a monstrous use (waste) of real world capital, without creating wealth to balance it, to meet clearly impossible goals related to what is commonly called stopping “climate change.”
Lithium is hot—again—though this time the rally looks to have more staying power. The market has exploded, with a benchmark index more than doubling in 2021 and key prices in China hitting records.
Driving the frenzy is the silvery metal’s allure as a commodity of the future: It’s one of the key components for the rechargeable batteries used to power electric vehicles.
NEWRY — The richest known hard rock lithium deposit in the world lies a few miles northeast of the ski slopes of Sunday River and not far from Step Falls, where swimmers can wade in shallow pools formed by hundreds of feet of cascading granite ledge.
Smaller deposits have been known in Maine for decades, but this recent discovery, just north of Plumbago Mountain in Newry, is the first to have a major resource potential.
According to the latest report (August 2021) from Roskill, the leading consultancy in critical metals supply chain intelligence, the outlook for the lithium market is dominated by rapid and sustained demand growth, driven by the use of lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries in automotive and energy storage applications (ESS).
Furthermore, Roskill expect that fundamental changes in operation size and the range of lithium production sources will be needed to meet forecast demand growth and avoid a growing supply deficit and for this to succeed, producers will require adequate lithium compound prices to attract investment and incentivise the develop of lithium resources, a factor which is expected to see lithium prices well supported over the period to 2031.
The forklift, that vehicle with a pronged device in front for lifting heavy loads that’s found mostly in dingy warehouses and out-of-the-way loading docks, rarely enters the conversation about how Canada can grab a coveted piece of the rapidly growing battery-powered electric vehicle market.
Yet earlier this month, Mississauga-based Stromcore Energy Inc., which assembles lithium-ion batteries for forklifts at a modest plant in Ontario, announced preliminary plans to build what could be, if successful, Canada’s first large scale lithium-ion battery cell factory.
https://www.northernminer.com/
ING Economics has published a new report in which its experts predict what the energy transition might bring for five key metals: copper, aluminum, nickel, cobalt, and lithium.
Taking into consideration where different regions of the world stand when it comes to moving towards a low-carbon future where global warming is limited to 2 degrees Celsius, ING’s analysts developed three scenarios that they used as a background to assess the possible performance of battery metals.
A North American Battery Supply Chain Emerges
Hi all, James Frith here again this week. I want to look at how Canada is re-positioning itself to take advantage of the growing electric vehicle supply chain, after years of overlooking the battery industry.
Despite having all of the critical ingredients for lithium-ion batteries — nickel, cobalt, lithium, graphite — Canada doesn’t have any EV cell or component manufacturing; and it has only about 10% of the battery demand of the U.S.
Chile will open a tender for the exploration and production of 400,000 tonnes of lithium in an effort to reclaim market share and meet growing demand for the metal used in electric vehicles and high-tech devices.
The copper-producing nation, which holds the world’s largest known lithium reserves, said is preparing bidding rules available to local and foreign firms for five quotas of 80,000 tonnes each.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Canada’s Neo Lithium Corp. has agreed to a $960-million acquisition by Chinese state-owned Zijin Mining Group Co. Ltd., a deal one security expert predicts will trigger an in-depth national security review by Ottawa.
Toronto-based Neo Lithium is developing a lithium mine in Argentina and hopes to eventually supply the silvery white metal to the electric vehicle industry. A 2019 prefeasibility study predicts the company’s 3Q mine could generate a 50-per-cent return on investment after it goes into production.
In the heart of Montreal’s downtown core at 1 Place Ville Marie — one of the tallest buildings in the city — is the address of Britishvolt Canada Inc.’s headquarters.
Technically, Britishvolt’s Canadian seat doubles as Denton’s senior business advisor Philippe Couillard’s office. But that makes sense as Couillard, along with a small but growing team, is largely responsible for bringing the British technology and manufacturing company to Canada — and which this week revealed to Electric Autonomy Canada in an exclusive interview its plan to build a 60GWh battery cell gigafactory, an R&D centre, and anode and cathode processing set up in Quebec.
(Bloomberg) — Lithium has gotten so hot that even China’s gold miners want a slice of the market, sky high valuations and all. Zijin Mining Group Co., a major Chinese gold and copper producer, announced on Friday its first foray into the booming lithium sector with its C$960 million ($770 million) purchase of Neo Lithium Corp.
It’s just the latest in a series of recent acquisitions, mostly involving Chinese bidders for South American assets owned by Canadian firms, amid surging demand for the key ingredient used to power electric vehicles.
