Twitter

Lithium

CAQ’s credibility on environment tested by proposed mine near pristine Abitibi water source – by Jonathan Montpetit (CBC News Montreal – November 25, 2018)

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

The 500 residents of La Motte, Que., don’t have have a gas station or even a convenience store, but they do enjoy some of the best-tasting drinking water in North America. So when an Australian mining firm began seeking approval to build an open-air lithium mine just a stone’s throw from the community’s water source, reactions were decidedly mixed in the town, located 50 kilometres northwest of Val-d’Or.

Some were eager for the 132 jobs the company, Sayona, is promising to create. La Motte’s town council unanimously passed a motion in July endorsing the project. Others, though, are concerned about the proposed mine’s proximity to the Saint-Mathieu-Lac-Berry esker, the 8,000-year-old ridge of stratified sand and gravel that naturally filters rain and snow in the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region of northern Quebec.

Residents have struggled to get answers about the environmental risks of a project that would rip a hole — 1,000 metres long, 600 metres wide and 200 metres deep — into the terrain.

Read more

Race for lithium illustrates EU drive for ‘strategic’ raw materials – by Frédéric Simon (EURACTIV.com – November 21, 2018)

https://www.euractiv.com/

The European Union is accelerating plans to develop lithium mining and refining capacity on its territory as part of a concerted EU push to develop a strategic value chain for manufacturing electric car batteries inside Europe.

With the electrification of transport, the race to develop a complete battery manufacturing value chain in Europe is now underway. And despite a slow start, the EU is rapidly catching up. One year ago, the European Commission launched a European Battery Alliance, bringing together automakers, chemical and engineering executives in a bid to compete with Asian and American manufacturers.

The objective is to build a whole value chain for the manufacturing of batteries in Europe, a strategy that came to the forefront earlier this year when the European Investment Bank (EIB) announced financing to build Europe’s largest battery factory, in Sweden.

Read more

Lithium King Bets Big on Demand Shift With Australia Mine Deal – by Laura Millan Lombrana (Bloomberg News – November 21, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Albemarle Corp. agreed to pay $1.15 billion for a stake in a giant lithium mine in Australia, guaranteeing the biggest producer of the mineral greater access to a more refined form of the raw material that’s increasingly being used in electric-car batteries.

The Charlotte, North Carolina-based company will take a 50 percent stake in a potential joint venture with Mineral Resources Ltd. that will own and operate the Wodgina hard-rock lithium deposit with a mine life of over three decades. Under the deal, Albemarle will manage the marketing and sales of lithium hydroxide, which fetches a higher price than lithium carbonate. Mineral Resources rose as much as 33 percent, the most since July 2006, in Sydney trading Thursday.

Albemarle plans to expand output in Australia to gain from rising demand for lithium hydroxide, also known as spodumene. The mineral works better with cathodes containing higher levels of nickel, helping electric cars go further on a single charge. The deal signals the company’s swift reaction toward shifting demand that has previously been concentrated mostly on lithium carbonate.

Read more

WA’s newest lithium mine officially opens, with plans to expand already in motion – by Hamish Hastie (Sydney Morning Herald – November 16, 2018)

https://www.smh.com.au/

The lithium train shows no sign of slowing in WA as the state’s newest mine officially opens, with plans already in motion to expand the Pilbara operation. The first shipment from Pilbara Minerals’ Pilgangoora lithium-tantalum project left the mine on October 2 but was officially opened by WA Mines and Petroleum Minister Bill Johnston on Friday.

Located 120 kilometres south of Port Hedland, the mine will produce 330,000 tonnes of lithium a year and about 300,000 pounds of tantalum. The Pilgangoora project’s workforce peaked at more than 800 during construction, but now there are about 200 operational staff on-site and in Perth.

The opening comes just more than four years to the day the first hole was drilled and is one of the fastest major lithium developments in recent history. Plans are already underway to expand the mine.

Read more

Chilean regulators reject Albemarle’s plans to boost lithium output – by Dave Sherwood (Reuters U.K. – November 13, 2018)

https://uk.reuters.com/

SANTIAGO (Reuters) – Chilean environmental regulators have rejected plans by Albemarle Corp (ALB.N), the world’s top lithium producer, to expand output from the Salar de Atacama salt flat, according to filings with Chile’s Environmental Assessment Service (SEA).

SEA said in a resolution on Monday that Albemarle’s environmental impact statement, which included plans to build a new plant to produce 42,500 tonnes of lithium carbonate in northern Chile, lacked key information to gauge the project’s impact, prompting an “early termination” of its review.

“The applicant [Albemarle] does not present the details necessary to rule out significant adverse impacts on the quantity and quality of renewable natural resources, including the soil, water and air,” the regulator concluded in the Nov. 12 resolution, which was first reported by Reuters.

Read more

COLUMN-Lithium price tensions highlight need for an LME contract – by Andy Home (Reuters U.K. – November 8, 2018)

https://uk.reuters.com/

LONDON, Nov 8 (Reuters) – What’s the price of lithium, the “hot metal” at the heart of the electric vehicle (EV) revolution? The spot price in China has collapsed over the course of 2018 as the market absorbs a wave of supply, much of it from the new hard-rock mines that have come on stream in Australia.

Outside of China, however, the picture is very different with the price of lithium in bigger-volume contracts consolidating an upwards trend that has been running since 2015. The divergence shows how pricing lithium is still very much work in progress.

It also explains why the London Metal Exchange (LME) is looking to enter the fray with what would be the first exchange-traded lithium contract. The spot lithium carbonate market has collapsed from an average $26.18 per kilogram in December 2017 to $11.23 in October, according to Fastmarkets MB.

Read more

‘We’re just not there’: Batteries not ready to replace fossil fuels, says lithium miner – by Cole Latimer (Sydney Morning Herald – November 5, 2018)

https://www.smh.com.au/

A battery material miner headed by global energy experts says the world is still a decade away from large batteries and renewables replacing baseload power.

Junior lithium miner ioneer, whose board includes the former chairman of lithium miner Orocobre, James Calaway; the former president of Shell, John Hofmeister; and the former head of Rio Tinto’s minerals and energy division, Alan Davies, said batteries and solar aren’t ready to replace gas or coal.

“Today, when people say you can apply lithium-ion batteries to create baseload from intermittent power they’re just not right,” Mr Calaway told Fairfax Media. “It’s too expensive. It’s a folly to think it will be a switch that just goes from one to the other. People can talk about intermittency, and how batteries will solve intermittency, it’s coming but we’re just not there.

Read more

With $4.1 billion at stake, Nutrien waits on Chilean court to rule on ‘Hail Mary’ lawsuit – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – October 20, 2018)

https://business.financialpost.com/

The giant potash company is tussling with a powerful businessman: the former son-in-law of the late Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet

Saskatchewan-based Nutrien Ltd. persuaded antitrust authorities earlier this month to sign off on its US$4.1 billion sale of its stake in a South American lithium producer. But now the giant potash company is tussling with a powerful businessman: the former son-in-law of the late Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.

Julio Ponce, a billionaire with a checkered past whose father-in-law previously ruled Chile, has filed a lawsuit seeking more time to review Nutrien’s US$4.1 billion sale in Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile to a Chinese buyer.

If the lawsuit delays the sale long enough, some analysts believe Nutrien may be forced to ditch its Chinese buyer and sell its stake in SQM on the open market — for as much as US$1 billion less than the original price.

Read more

Lithium miners’ dispute reveals water worries in Chile’s Atacama desert – by Dave Sherwood (Reuters U.S. – October 18, 2018)

https://graphics.reuters.com/

Earlier this year, the world’s two biggest lithium producers publicly celebrated new deals with Chile’s government that will allow them to vastly increase output of the ultralight battery metal from the Atacama, the world’s driest desert.

U.S.-based Albemarle Corp and Chile’s SQM operate just 3 miles (5 km) apart in the remote Salar, a basin in the Atacama that is home to one of the world’s richest deposits of high-grade lithium. Lithium-ion batteries are key components for most consumer electronics, from cellphones and laptops to electric cars.

In celebrating the new contracts, the two companies said they were confident they could significantly boost output without drawing more than their current quotas of lithium-rich brine, or saltwater, that has for millennia accumulated in pools beneath the Atacama. The rivals said each had all the brine they needed for current and future production.

Read more

Battery metals appear to be losing their spark as prices start to fall – by Courtney Goldsmith (World Finance – October 16, 2018)

https://www.worldfinance.com/

Cobalt and lithium prices have surged as a rise in renewable energy has increased the need for battery storage solutions. However, the bubble may be about to burst for these metals

The automotive industry is on the verge of an electric revolution. The International Energy Agency has predicted the number of electric vehicles on the world’s roads will triple to hit 13 million by the end of the decade – and by 2030 that number could soar to 125 million.

Meanwhile, the rise of renewable energy generation has boosted demand for battery storage, which can balance intermittent power from green energy sources. The global energy storage market is expected to grow to more than 300GWh between 2016 and 2030, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF).

These new industries are powering demand for batteries, which has thrust a number of little-known metals into the spotlight. This has led to the price of lithium – a key component in lithium-ion batteries – doubling between 2016 and 2018. Meanwhile, the price of cobalt – a by-product of copper or nickel mining that is used in battery cathodes – has more than tripled since January 2016 (see Fig 1).

Read more

Livent Corp. boss warns of lithium shortage within a decade – by Susanne Barton, Laura Millan Lombrana and David Stringer (Toronto Star/Bloomberg – October 13, 2018)

https://www.thestar.com/

NEW YORK—The market for lithium will remain tight through 2025 as producers struggle to lift output fast enough to meet demand for the material that’s essential in making batteries for electric vehicles, according to the sector’s newest public company, Livent Corp.

“We think demand is going to grow almost five times larger in 2025 than it was in 2017,” chief executive officer Paul Graves said in an interview Thursday in New York, as the supplier made its trading debut. “Our biggest challenge is producing enough to meet the demand — there’s a much greater risk that this market is consistently in a deficit in the near future.”

The longer-term demand outlook from Livent, a spin off from chemical maker FMC Corp., echoes the view from Chinese competitor, Jiangxi Ganfeng Lithium Co., which this week sold shares in Hong Kong for the first time.

Read more

Chilean court freezes sale of stake in lithium giant SQM to Tianqi – by Fabian Cambero (Reuters U.S. – October 11, 2018)

https://www.reuters.com/

SANTIAGO (Reuters) – A Chilean court on Thursday suspended the sale of a coveted stake in lithium producer SQM SQM_pb.SN to China’s Tianqi Lithium Corp, saying it will consider a lawsuit filed by the Chilean company’s controlling shareholders, who oppose the deal.

The lawsuit, filed on Wednesday, alleges a previous anti-trust court decision did not give shareholders adequate time to review the agreement between Tianqi and regulators, allowing the Chinese miner to purchase a 24 percent stake in the world’s No. 2 producer of lithium, a metal used to make batteries for electric vehicles.

The agreement is intended to limit the exchange of commercially sensitive information between Tianqi and SQM, though detractors say it does not go far enough. It would give Tianqi the right to have at least three of the company’s eight board seats, fueling concerns that Tianqi would have access to internal SQM documents that it would then use to its own advantage.

Read more

Chile: Questions about Water Availability could Threaten the Mining Industry – by Mervyn Piesse (Future Directions.org – October 10, 2018)

http://www.futuredirections.org.au/

South America holds two-thirds of the world’s lithium reserves and Chile alone possesses almost half of the world total. Copper is also important to the Chilean economy and accounts for almost half of its export earnings. Many large Chilean copper mines are ageing, however, and the supply of high-grade ore has diminished.

To maintain production, copper producers are increasingly forced to exploit copper sulphide deposits, using a process that is more water-intensive. The Chilean Government is also simultaneously moving to exploit the country’s vast lithium resources, which could further strain water supplies in the resource-rich, but water-poor, Salar de Atacama.

As most of Chile’s lithium is dissolved in briny water drawn from Andean salt flats, it can only be extracted through a lengthy evaporation process. Conversely, Australian lithium reserves are predominantly found in hard rocks. Australia is currently the largest world supplier, despite holding less than ten per cent of the world’s identified lithium resources.

Read more

The Lithium Cartel Is Self-Destructing – by David Fickling (Bloomberg News – October 10, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

China’s incentive to keep the electric-battery metal cheap has soured investors on Ganfeng’s Hong Kong IPO.

If that wasn’t bad enough, look at what just happened to Ganfeng Lithium Co., the world’s second-biggest producer. Its Hong Kong initial public offering has been priced at HK$16.50 a share, the company announced Wednesday, at the bottom of a target range that went as high as HK$26.50.

Even at those prices investors weren’t biting, with the slice available to Hong Kong investors about 40 percent undersubscribed. That’s arguably not surprising, given the run of IPO flops over the past year, including online car-sales platform Yixin Group Ltd. and smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp.

Still, it left a hefty share of the issue in the hands of LG Chem Ltd., Samsung SDI Co. and four Chinese state-linked companies who were acting as cornerstone investors and had subscribed for a fixed dollar amount, plus an additional 2 million shares which were placed with a unit of state-owned Guotai Junan International Holdings Ltd.

Read more

Albemarle shares drop after Chile rejects hike in lithium quota – by Dave Sherwood and Ernest Scheyder (Reuters U.S. – October 8, 2018)

https://www.reuters.com/

SANTIAGO/HOUSTON (Reuters) – Shares of Albemarle Corp (ALB.N) fell as much as 2.3 percent on Monday following news that Chile’s nuclear regulator refused to increase the company’s quota to sell lithium produced from its Salar de Atacama operation.

The Chilean Nuclear Energy Commission (CCHEN) rejected Albemarle’s March request to increase its quota to sell lithium products by 258,446 tonnes, according to a Sept. 13 agency resolution obtained by Reuters via a Chilean freedom of information request.

Albemarle spokeswoman Andrea Cole said CCHEN’s concerns are of a “technical nature” and that the company would re-submit its request “in the coming weeks,” hoping to resolve the issue.

Read more