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Are Lithium Stocks at Rock Bottom? – by Stephen Wilmot (Wall Street Journal – February 19, 2024)

https://www.wsj.com/

The volatile metal has spawned a volatile market, and prices have fallen too far to cover the cost of supply needed for electric vehicles

If investing is about pouncing at the point of maximum pessimism, lithium stocks must be worth a fresh look.

The metal used to make electric-vehicle batteries has given investors whiplash. Prices rose rapidly in 2021 and 2022 before falling even faster in 2023. Seaborne spot supplies of the benchmark compounds, lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide, now cost roughly what they did in mid-2021, according to data from the price-reporting agency Fastmarkets.

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Canadian graphite miner NMG scores deals with GM, Panasonic – by Cecilia Jamasmie (Mining.com – February 15, 2024)

https://www.mining.com/

Nouveau Monde Graphite (TSX-V: NOU) (NYSE: NMG) inked on Thursday multi-year offtake agreements with General Motors (NYSE: GM) and Panasonic Holdings, with both companies also vowing to invest in the Canadian miner to help it produce high-quality graphite in North America.

GM and Panasonic have each committed to purchase 18,000 tonnes of natural graphite active anode material annually over a period of six to seven years, the Montreal-based miner said. They are also making equity investments of $25 million each in the company. The two firms and potential co-investors could join future rounds of financing worth hundreds of millions of dollars, Nouveau Monde Graphite (NGM) said in a statement.

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Heather Exner-Pirot: Why critical minerals are key to Canada’s global influence – by Heather Exner-Pirot (The Hub – February 12, 2024)

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It’s time to establish strategic reserves for critical minerals

From the acquisition of a rare earths stockpile from a mine in the Northwest Territories to the purchasing of stakes in Canadian miners Solaris Resources and First Quantum, a recent spate of Chinese investment in Canadian mining projects has rightly sparked concerns. In the past three years, many Western nations including Canada have put out critical minerals strategies to promote friendly sources of supply and mitigate Chinese dominance in the sector. Yet we are still falling behind.

At the same time, one empathizes with Canadian miners looking to China for investment; they are not finding it anywhere else. Junior and mid-sized miners are starved for capital even as Western politicians are proclaiming their commitment to the sector. Thankfully, there is a solution to the challenge of both reducing dependence on Chinese-controlled exports and boosting Western investment in our own supply. It is time to establish strategic reserves for critical minerals.

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Indonesia Has Grand Ambitions for Its Nickel Industry – by Christina Lu (Foreign Policy – February 13, 2024)

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As the country heads to the polls this week, the future of Jakarta’s bid is set to come into sharper focus.

Long before the energy transition gained momentum around the world, nickel powerhouse Indonesia dreamed of harnessing its mineral riches to transform its economy and wield greater leverage in the international marketplace.

The global shift away from fossil fuels and the growing demand for the critical minerals powering green technology have turbocharged Jakarta’s ambitions. Nickel is a key component in electric vehicle batteries, yet few countries can claim as big of a stake over the global nickel sector as Indonesia, which is home to some of the world’s biggest nickel reserves and mined half of the global supply in 2022.

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US wildlife service considering endangered status for tiny snail near Nevada lithium mine – by Scott Sonner (Associated Press – February 8, 2024)

https://apnews.com/

RENO, Nev. (AP) — Federal wildlife officials have agreed to conduct a full, year-long review to determine whether a tiny snail found only in high-desert springs near a huge lithium mine being built along the Nevada-Oregon line should be listed as a threatened or endangered species.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in a finding published Thursday in the Federal Register that enough scientific exists to warrant the review sought by environmentalists who say that groundwater pumping required for the operation of the Thacker Pass mine could push the Kings River pyrg to the brink of extinction.

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How China Built BYD, Its Tesla Killer – by Keith Bradsher (New York Times – February 12, 2024)

https://www.nytimes.com/

The leading Chinese electric vehicle company, with origins as a battery maker, has posted two years of million-car growth in sales.

China’s BYD was a battery manufacturer trying its hand at building cars when it showed off its newest model in 2007. American executives at the Guangzhou auto show gaped at the car’s uneven purple paint job and the poor fit of its doors. “They were the laughingstock of the industry,” said Michael Dunne, a China auto industry analyst. Nobody is laughing at BYD now.

The company passed Tesla in worldwide sales of fully electric cars late last year. BYD is building assembly lines in Brazil, Hungary, Thailand and Uzbekistan and preparing to do so in Indonesia and Mexico. It is rapidly expanding exports to Europe. And the company is on the cusp of passing Volkswagen Group, which includes Audi, as the market leader in China.

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Feds invest $5 million in Temiskaming cobalt processing plant – Ian Ross (Northern Ontario Business – February 9, 2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Refinery developer optimistic more government, private funding will arrive to finish construction

Ottawa is weighing into the processing of critical minerals with a $5-million investment in Electra Battery Materials’ cobalt refinery in Temiskaming, the first dedicated plant of its kind in North America.

The funding will go toward a restart of a construction project that was mothballed in 2023 and for other preparatory technical and processing work. In an interview with Northern Ontario Business, Electra CEO Trent Mell called today’s funding announcement “great news, but it is only a first step.”

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The Great Salt Lake Is Full of Lithium. A Startup Wants to Harvest It. – by Scott Patterson (Wall Street Journal – February 12, 2024)

https://www.wsj.com/

Lilac has raised $145 million from Bill Gates’s Breakthrough Energy Ventures, other investors

America’s biggest saltwater lake may hold a key to the country’s energy future. This summer, a California startup plans to start construction on a project to suck up water from the Great Salt Lake to extract one of its many valuable minerals: lithium, a critical ingredient in the rechargeable batteries used in electric vehicles.

The water will then be reinjected back into the lake, which Lilac Solutions says addresses concerns about the damaging effects of mineral extraction. At its peak, Lilac says it will use a series of pipes to suck up 80,000 gallons of water a minute to harvest the mineral. The company plans to eventually produce up to 20,000 tons of battery-grade lithium a year at its site in northern Utah, located among fields of cattle and pickleweed.

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Canada Nickel Co. introduces plans for new processing facilities, but funding remains uncertain – by Matthew McClearn (Globe and Mail – February 9, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Canada Nickel Company Inc. announced plans Thursday to build two large processing facilities near Timmins, Ont., whose output would be directed partly to North America’s rapidly growing market for electric vehicles.

The company said its wholly owned subsidiary, NetZero Metals Inc., intends to build a nickel-processing facility it described as North America’s largest, as well as a stainless-steel and alloy plant it said would be Canada’s biggest.

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Can royalties help Australia’s critical minerals lift off? – by Clyde Russell (Reuters – February 12, 2024)

https://www.reuters.com/

LAUNCESTON, Australia, Feb 12 (Reuters) – A consistent contradiction in Australia’s mining sector is that while there is a pressing need for new mines to be developed to provide raw materials for the energy transition, the capital to do so is hard to find.

The relatively easy part is getting an exploration permit, doing some initial drilling and proving up a resource. The hard part is then raising the finance to develop the mine from exploration to production.

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Canada Nickel looking to build two processing facilities in Timmins – by Maija Hoggett (Northern Ontario Business – February 8, 2024)

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Toronto mine developer looks to break ground on zero-emission project in mid-2025

A Toronto nickel company is seeking to position Timmins as a global source of clean critical minerals. Timmins MPP George Pirie, the provincial minister of mines, was in town Feb. 8 for Canada Nickel’s announcement that it’s developing two processing facilities — one for nickel and another for stainless-steel and alloy production.

The facilities would be the downstream processing element for its proposed Crawford open-pit nickel mine.When complete, Canada Nickel CEO Mark Selby said the nickel processing facility will be the largest in North America, while the stainless-steel and alloy production will be the largest in Canada.

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Canadian miner plans US$1 billion nickel processing plant for EVs – by Jacob Lorinc (Bloomberg News – February 8, 2024)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

Mining firm Canada Nickel Co Inc. plans to develop a nickel processing plant in Ontario that would cost US$1 billion and be North America’s largest once completed.

The plant would have capacity to produce more than 80,000 tons of nickel annually, and should begin operations by the start of 2027, the Toronto-based miner said in a Thursday press release. The company also plans to build a stainless steel and alloy production plant to process nickel and chromium concentrate, which would cost an additional $2 billion, according to Chief Executive Officer Mark Selby.

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Australia to propose green mining standards amid slump in EV metals – by Ryohtaroh Satch (Nikkei Asia – February 7, 2024)

https://asia.nikkei.com/

Resources minister cites need to protect industry as Asian competition grows

TOKYO — Australia will propose setting up international standards for ethical and environmentally friendly mining in an attempt to command higher prices for its minerals amid a sluggish market and competition from countries like Indonesia.

“It’s a long-term project, but there’s no doubt there’s something I’ll be raising,” Minister for Resources Madeleine King told Nikkei Asia while visiting Tokyo last week. King said she will propose the idea at the PDAC 2024 Convention, a mineral industry trade event, in Canada in March.

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Canada’s dream of becoming a critical minerals powerhouse runs into crashing metals prices, delaying mine development – by Tim Kiladze (Globe and Mail – February 7, 2024)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Plummeting prices for metals such as lithium and nickel are dashing Canada’s dream of becoming a global juggernaut for critical minerals, with a market capitulation making it even more challenging to raise the money needed to build new mines.

The situation is growing so dire that some miners have started calling for heavy-handed government intervention, including the possibility of Ottawa directly funding new projects, because they worry that Canada will lose the race to produce these minerals to rivals such as China for good.

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Stop China’s neo-Marxist EV trade war – by Terence Corcoran (Financial Post – February 7, 2024)

https://financialpost.com/

If it’s really about fighting climate change, let cheap Chinese EVs into Canada

The website of the Toronto International AutoShow, which opens next week, boasts a section called Electric City, but don’t look for any of China’s low-cost electric brands there. As the world seems to be heading for a global electric vehicle trade war, one wonders whether we will ever see cheaper made-in-China EVs on the roads of Canada. Maybe not, if the current Canadian and global EV policy regimes remain in place.

The international auto market has never been a model of free trade perfection, but the current upheaval may turn out to be a major reversal in national and international trade policy and a threat to global stability. The main shift is the transformation of the auto industry into a major battleground for state economic intervention and control.

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