Twitter

Lithium

Lithium booms shows no sign of slowing as new refinery announced for WA – by Jarrod Lucas and Jon Daly (Australian Broadcasting Corporation – June 6, 2018)

http://www.abc.net.au/

A Western Australian lithium miner is tipping the current boom for battery technologies will last at least a decade, as plans were revealed on Wednesday for a new lithium refinery in the Goldfields.

China’s appetite for lithium continues to drive the boom, with lithium most commonly used in new generation batteries for electric vehicles and home power storage. Lithium miner Neometals has revealed plans to build a downstream processing plant in Kalgoorlie-Boulder at a cost of about $200 million, creating more than 100 jobs.

The decision marks potentially the biggest economic shake-up for the regional mining hub since the construction of the Kalgoorlie Nickel Smelter in the 1970s and the start of the Super Pit gold mine in the late 1980s.

Read more

Battery taskforce powers up to supercharge WA lithium potential – by Stuart McKinnon (The West Australian – May 24, 2018)

https://thewest.com.au/

A taskforce to investigate how WA can cash in on a “once-in-a-generation” lithium and battery minerals boom will make recommendations to the State Government within six months.

Announcing the taskforce in Maylands in front of two Tesla demonstration Model X electric cars yesterday, Mines Minister Bill Johnston said the downstream processing of lithium and other battery minerals in WA could create thousands of highly skilled, high-paying jobs.

He said the taskforce, consisting of senior government representatives, would engage with companies operating in the sector and take advice from an industry reference group.

Read more

A Legacy of Mining Busts Haunts Chile’s Lithium Dreams – by Laura Millan Lombrana (Bloomberg News – May 25, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Dozens of towns abandoned after a collapse in nitrate prices offer a cautionary tale for the next hot commodity.

Chile knows what it is to be expendable. Ghost towns that pepper the nation’s north are a painful reminder of a time when it was replaced almost overnight as the world’s top fertilizer producer. These days, the decaying buildings and rusty plants serve as a harbinger for miners embarking on a major expansion of lithium.

Lithium prices have tripled in three years, triggering a race to find a replacement for the soft, white mineral that is used to make batteries for a range of products from electric cars to mobile phones.
As researchers at institutions from the U.S. Department of Energy to Stanford University work behind the scenes to come up with a chemical alternative, local mining executives say Chile’s boom-to-bust past often weighs on the back of their minds.

While miner Soc. Quimica & Minera de Chile SA, or SQM, believes the lithium business “will go on for a while,” Chief Executive Officer Patricio de Solminihac acknowledges they always need to keep an eye out for the next big development. The nature of disruptive technologies means “they come out of nowhere and develop incredibly fast,” he said.

Read more

A Lithium Valley in Western Australia could power the world – by Cameron Jewell (Fifth Estate.com – May 24, 2018)

https://www.thefifthestate.com.au/

There’s more than 100,000 jobs and $50 billion in economic activity up for grabs if a “Lithium Valley” is set up in Western Australia, according to Curtin University’s Professor Peter Newman, one of the authors behind a new report calling for the state to become a battery manufacture and technology leader.

According to Newman, Western Australia is a one-stop shop for all the materials needed to power the new economy, and says a “Lithium Valley” should be set up in Kwinana, Perth, leveraging off the recent announcement of a lithium hydroxide refinery being built, and Tesla’s recent meeting with the state government.

The report – Lithium Valley: Establishing the case for energy metals and battery manufacturing in Western Australia – says WA is home to the world’s most accessible abundance of energy metals, including lithium, cobalt, vanadium, tin, tantalum, nickel, manganese, magnesium and rare earths – essential components in batteries and other renewable tech.

Read more

China Looks to Control Global Lithium Supply – by Fan Yu (Epoch Times – May 20, 2018)

https://www.theepochtimes.com/

China is slowly amassing control over the global supply of lithium, an important mineral in the production supply chain of new technologies.

On May 17, China-based Tianqi Lithium paid more than $4 billion to purchase a sizable stake in Chile’s Sociedad Química y Minera (SQM), one of the world’s biggest producers of lithium. Tianqi bought the stake in SQM from Canadian fertilizer company Nutrien.

Lithium is a critical mineral for production of high-capacity batteries, those powering the world’s smartphones, electric cars, and renewable energy grids. Expected global production of electric cars is expected to dramatically increase demand for lithium. Whoever controls the production of lithium has great influence over the price and supply chain for these emerging technologies.

Read more

The Lithium Cartel Should Be Stopped – by David Fickling (Bloomberg News – May 18, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Why are we so relaxed about an emerging oligopoly in the key battery element?

The world doesn’t like its essential commodities being controlled by a small group of producers. When Arab members of Opec resolved to cut their oil exports in response to U.S. involvement in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, the situation was rightly deemed a global crisis.

Less than a year after BHP Billiton Ltd. announced plans to merge its iron ore operations with those of Rio Tinto Group in 2009, the proposal was dropped amid expectations that regulators in Europe and Asia would oppose the deal on antitrust grounds.

So why is there so little noise about the emerging oligopoly in one of the hottest elements on the periodic table, lithium?

Read more

Electric vehicle rush fuels optimism at LME Asia Week – by Melanie Burton and Tom Daly (Reuters U.S.- May 18, 2018)

https://www.reuters.com/

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Rising demand for battery materials cobalt and lithium infused some optimism into an otherwise cautious London Metal Exchange (LME) Asia Week, amid a backdrop of slowing growth in China and escalating trade tensions between it and the United States.

In the event’s first ever session on battery materials in Hong Kong, Chinese cobalt producers such as Jinchuan Group International Resources and Wanbao Mining said they were ramping up production to sate an anticipated demand boom from electric vehicles (EVs).

That is a market that the LME hopes to tap with the launch of cash-settled cobalt and lithium contracts, slated for late this year or early next year.

Read more

‘They actually sold it at a premium’: Nutrien sells stake in Chilean lithium producer for $4.1 billion – by Gabriel Freidman (Financial Post – May 18, 2018)

http://business.financialpost.com/

In a sign of how hot the lithium market is, Canadian fertilizer producer Nutrien Ltd. sold a 24 per cent stake in Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile S.A. for US$4.07 billion, at a healthy premium.

The purchaser, China’s Tianqi Lithium Corp., agreed to pay US$65 per share for the Chilean producer, which represented a premium on the US$58 trading price, which surprised some analysts, as antitrust regulators in China and India had required Nutrien — the company formed by the merger of Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan and Agrium Inc. — to sell its stake in SQM as a condition of the deal.

“The price seemed good,” said John Chu, an analyst with Laurentian Bank Securities. “Because Nutrien had given advanced notice that they had to sell it, and because it was such a large block of shares, it was thought that they would have to sell it a discount, and they actually sold it at a premium.”

Read more

Battery makers pushing for ten 10-year lithium contracts: Albemarle – by Peter Ker (Australian Financial Review – May 14, 2018)

http://www.afr.com/

A push to offer long warranties for batteries used in electric cars is one factor forcing lithium miners to change the way they sell their product, according to one of Australia’s biggest producers.

US company Albemarle, which owns 49 per cent of the lithium-rich Greenbushes spodumene mine in Western Australia, said battery manufacturers are increasingly demanding 10-year contracts in a bid to secure supply. The comments came as the New York listed company indicated first production on its $400 million lithium hydroxide plant in WA may come a year later than previously expected.

Addressing investors, Albemarle’s lithium president John Mitchell said a desire to offer 10-year warranties on lithium-ion batteries was driving some manufacturers to seek guaranteed sources of raw materials for similar periods.

Read more

RESOURCE EXTRACTION: Chile’s lithium – blessing or curse? – by Sophia Boddenberg (Deutsche Welle – May 11, 2018)

http://www.dw.com/en/

Salar de Atacama is rich in lithium, essential to electric cars and other low-carbon tech. But indigenous people are fighting its extraction, saying private interests are cashing in at the expense of their environment.

The Salar de Atacama’s geysers, volcanoes and flamingos attract tourists from around the world. But beneath its dramatic vistas, the Chilean salt flats hide something of far greater economic potential that’s drawing a different kind of interest – from the world’s chemical companies.

Lithium batteries are essential to all kinds of gadgets from laptops and mobile phones to the electric cars and power storage facilities that are to help wean the world of fossil fuels. As the world shifts to renewables, more and more sectors are to be electrified, and demand for lithium is expected to double by 2025.

Read more

Private firm takes on Codelco for control of Chile lithium deposit – by Fabian Cambero (Reuters U.S. – May 9, 2018)

https://www.reuters.com/

SANTIAGO (Reuters) – A foreign-backed miner has sued Chile to block state-run Codelco from exploiting a lithium deposit where both have claims, according to a lawsuit filed in March that will be carefully watched by potential investors being courted by the country’s new government.

The little-known and remote Maricunga salt flat is far smaller than the expansive Salar de Atacama, where top lithium producers Albemarle and Chile’s SQM SQM_pb.SN rule supreme.

But the legal conflict at Maricunga under the newly inaugurated conservative government of President Sebastian Pinera may prove a bellwether for foreign miners anxious to invest in Chile, which is home to half of the world’s lithium reserves.

Read more

Europe Has the Potential to Develop Domestic Lithium Sources – by Stuart Burns (Metal Miner – May 7, 2018)

https://agmetalminer.com/

We normally associate Cornwall in England with scones and cream teas … or, if we are really metal nerds, we associate the sometimes sunny southeast country of the British Isles with mining (particularly with tin mining).

The area dominated with igneous morphology has been mined since Roman times for tin, copper and a number of other metals. But one metal, not surprisingly, that has never featured is lithium. I say “not surprisingly” because up to the end of the last century, it barely featured as a metal of value.

Nickel metal hydride batteries dominated the small appliance world and lead acid still served the rest. This century has seen an exponential growth in the use of lithium-ion batteries, from iPhones to electric cars to massive storage barns. The growth has been such that fears are mounting of a market shortage in the next decade, fueled in no small part by state support for electric vehicles (EVs) in Asia.

Read more

China lithium top player boosts investment in emerging Australian miner – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – May 7, 2018)

http://www.mining.com/

Sichuan Yahua Industrial Group, one of China’s largest lithium hydroxide and carbonate producers, is injecting further funds into emerging Australian lithium producer Core Exploration (ASX:CXO) as Chinese companies continue to aggressively try securing supply of the key ingredient needed for making the batteries that power electric cars.

Through its subsidiary Yahua International, Sichuan has given Core Exploration $1.4 million as share placement, on top of a $2 million cash injection it provided it in August last year.

With demand for EVs set to skyrocket in the next decade, Chinese companies have inked several deals in the past year to secure steady lithium supplies with mine developers in Australia, South America, Canada and Africa.

Read more

As Electric Cars Multiply, This IPO Will Test Big Lithium Value – by Carolina Millan and Jack Kaskey (Bloomberg News – May 3, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

How much is a lithium business really worth? Enthusiasts of the metal used in rechargeable batteries are about to find out.

FMC Corp. is looking to separate its lithium assets and list a portion of the shares in October, before providing the remainder to FMC shareholders within six months, the Philadelphia-based company said Thursday. It’s set to be the first U.S. initial public offering by a major lithium pure-play.

The decision comes as lithium demand is expected to surge along with purchases of electric vehicles. Demand for the lightweight metal will rise five-fold by 2025, potentially exceeding the world’s production capacity, Chief Executive Officer Pierre Brondeau said in February.

Read more

NOT ALL LITHIUM MINING IS EQUAL: HARD ROCK SHOWS POTENTIAL TO DISRUPT LITHIUM EVAPORATION – by Nicholas LePan (Mining Feeds.com – April 30, 2018)

http://www.miningfeeds.com/

Argentinian lithium producer Orocobre (TSX: ORL) recently reported lower than expected lithium production in its third fiscal quarter because weather interfered with its evaporation rates of its lithium brines. This reveals two problems with lithium brine production: reliability and geography. Another source of lithium is rising to met these problems, hard rock lithium mining.

One analyst pointed out that Orocobre’s production problems “clearly demonstrate” that production is not a straightforward process. “Weather events are beyond the control of Orocobre, but this reaffirms that there is still room to improve on the robustness of operations and reduce production variability from we ather impacts,” the analyst stated.

The company reported a 25-per-cent lower evaporation rate compared with the same quarter in 2017 which caused production problems and lithium output to fall 29 percent to 2,802 tonnes of Lithium Carbonate equivalent, from 3,937 tonnes in the December quarter. Its February rates were the lowest since 2011.

Read more