LAS VEGAS — The modern-day gold rush in the race to a greener economy is knocking on the door of a long-protected oasis in the middle of the Nevada desert.
Rover Metals, a Canadian minerals exploration company, plans to drill up to 30 deep holes in a remote patch of public land in southern Nye County as it hunts for large deposits of lithium, a key mineral in the production of electric vehicle batteries.
LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — The total of Bolivia’s confirmed lithium resources has increased 2 million tons to 23 million tons, the Andean country’s president said Thursday.
The new estimate further cements Bolivia’s position as the country with the world’s biggest known deposits of lithium, which is in high demand for use in batteries.
ATACAMA DESERT, Chile, July 20 – Chile’s millennial president, Gabriel Boric, promised to mine differently. He would turn the world’s largest copper producer and second largest lithium miner into a country that focused on environmental and social responsibility.
When Boric announced his ambitious plan in April to take state control over the country’s lithium industry and expand extraction of this essential component of electric car batteries, he pledged to so with pioneering environmentally-friendly technology, and personally talk with local Indigenous communities.
Rio Tinto (ASX, LON: RIO) has flagged a likely cost estimate and schedule review for its Rincon lithium project in Argentina’s Salta Province, an emerging hub for greenfield projects.
The world’s second largest miner, which released an operational update for the three months to June 30 on Tuesday, said the $140 million cost estimate and schedule to develop a starter plant at Rincon was under review in response to cost escalation.
(Bloomberg) — South Africa’s Moti Group said a Chinese company with which it planned to develop a $1 billion lithium processing plant in Zimbabwe was halving its stake in the venture, dealing the project a potential blow.
Moti Group’s Pulserate Investments holds a 10,000 hectare (24,710-acre) lithium exploration concession in the northeast of the country, Africa’s biggest producer of the metal according to the US Geological Survey.
https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/
Lithium is the driving force behind our new battery-powered world, but can Europe ensure its supply keeps pace with demand?
Earlier this year, the European Parliament approved the Fit for 55 package, the European Union’s ambitious plan to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. Increasing use of electric vehicles will be essential to this plan – and to power those vehicles, Europe will need to significantly shore up its lithium supply.
According to a briefing prepared for the EU Parliament in 2021, Europe will need access to 18 times more lithium by 2030 and 60 times more by 2050, to meet projected demand for electric vehicles, which predominantly use lithium-powered batteries.
Green industrial policy and hawkish security policies are clashing
“I’d like to get all the gas emissions off the highways of the world,” said John Goodenough, one of the Nobel prize-winning scientists who developed the lithium-ion battery four decades ago, during an interview in 2018.
Goodenough died on June 25th before his dream could become reality. But governments around the world are scrambling to make it so, with remarkable results. Global sales of electric cars quintupled between 2019 and 2022, surpassing 10m units last year.
The world’s richest known lithium deposit lies deep in the woods of western Maine, in a yawning, sparkling mouth of white and brown rocks that looks like a landslide carved into the side of Plumbago Mountain. Mary Freeman and her husband Gary found the deposit five years ago while hunting for tourmaline, a striking, multi-colored gemstone found in the region.
The Freemans make their living selling lab supplies through the Florida-based company they founded 40 years ago, Awareness Technology. But their true love is digging for gemstones, which has brought them for years to Mary’s home state of Maine, the site of some of the best tourmaline hunting in the world.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/
Sask. chief delivering message Friday in Washington to senior White House, corporate officials
Some are calling it Saskatchewan’s third “gold rush” — the frenzy to stake claims for lithium and other critical minerals. First Nations say they were pushed to the sidelines during previous waves of development and that won’t happen again. They’re set to deliver that message to a powerful international audience on Friday.
“We are willing partners, willing to do business. We aren’t the boogeyman,” Thunderchild First Nation Chief Delbert Wapass said. “But we won’t sit back. This new gold rush will not happen without us.”
On Wednesday, the Centre announced that it has lifted the ban on lithium mining, along with five other minerals. The Cabinet approved the amendment in the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) [MMDR] Act. As a result, now private companies can also mine these six minerals.
Around February, approximately 5.9 million tonnes of lithium resources were found in the Salal Haimana area of Reasi district in Jammu & Kashmir, as per the Geological Survey of India. In May, media reports suggested that lithium resources were traced in Rajasthan’s Degana as well. The lithium found in Jammu & Kashmir is supposedly of high quality—a grade of 500 ppm, compared to the normal grade of 200 ppm, claims India’s mining secretary.
Arizona State University researchers are working on a potential game-changer for battery technology: mixing lithium and sodium. Their aim is to cut costs and stabilize the supply chain, with preliminary results showing a thermodynamically stable 10% sodium-lithium mixture, expected to reach 20%.
Lithium is becoming the new gold, with rocketing use in lithium-ion batteries in electric cars, computers, and portable devices driving up the price and affecting the supply of the relatively rare metal. Scientists are on the verge of developing a way of using sodium to replace some of the lithium, so driving down costs and guaranteeing the supply.
https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/
Developers with lithium deposits edge closer to construction while new explorers make inroads into the region
Northwestern Ontario is one of the one of the most active areas for lithium exploration in the world. Entering the height of the summer field season, the news flow emanating from junior mining firms is fast and furious. The projects range in progress from early-stage prospecting to more advanced mine-ready developments.
Lithium prices began booming in 2021, crashed through the first four months of this year, then finally stabilized in June. There are no lithium mines in Ontario.
The lithium mining industry’s ups and downs since the start of the decade has been nothing short of spectacular. Measured from 2020 lows to November 2022 highs the price of lithium carbonate in China soared 1,400%, spodumene concentrate from Australia racked up 2,100% gains and European and US hydroxide climbed 804%.
Unlike nickel where swings have been equally wild, the action was not a paper-based futures short squeeze or other trading aberration but real-world transactions. The frenzy during the second half of last year meant anyone that could find a way to bring lithium to market did so – from direct shipping ore from Africa to lepidolite ramp ups in China to tailings reprocessing and, such as there were, recycled material.
Rio Tinto will redouble efforts to find hard rock lithium in the Western Australian outback, after confirming it would extend an exploration partnership near the town of Sandstone for the third time in two years. Rio Tinto chief executive Jakob Stausholm has made no secret of the miner’s desire to increase exposure to the battery material.
Rio finalised the $US825 million ($1.2 billion) acquisition of the Rincon project – near Orocobre’s flagship Olaroz operations – in Argentina last year. The Ango-Australian mining major already produces lithium from waste rock at a Californian mine, and last year entered into partnership with Canadian spodumene producers in the Canadian province of Quebec.
Canadian lithium explorer Patriot Battery Metals (TSX-V: PMET) (ASX: PMT) refuted on Monday claims published in a short-seller report, stating the assertions made by Night Market Research were “factually inaccurate and misleading.” The short-seller said on July 6 it attributed Patriot’s stock price rally to promotion efforts with unnamed marketing outlets that other “Tier-1” developers would avoid.
“Patriot Battery Metals is a rare mining ‘unicorn’ – a lithium explorer ascending to a $2-billion valuation despite having acquired its core asset for $8-million only 16 months ago and lacking an established maiden resource,” the report said.
