rio tinto to be the top domestic supplier in UStaken from yahoo finance
new serious competitor
Rio Tinto Group is starting pilot production of lithium in California and will consider an expansion to become the top domestic supplier in the U.S. as the world’s biggest miners look to boost their exposure to the electric car battery revolution.
Work to reprocess waste piles from a 90-year-old mining site in Boron has successfully produced lithium carbonate -- needed in rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles and consumer technology -- and efforts are now focused on improving quality and lifting volumes, Rio said Tuesday in an emailed statement.
Rio is the first top diversified miner to add lithium output to its portfolio and comes ahead of a looming decision on development of its mine project in Serbia that analysts estimate could account for about 5% of world demand. Demand for lithium will advance about eight-fold to 2030 as EV adoption increases and the battery sector expands, BloombergNEF said in a July report.
If the trials continue to prove successful, this has the potential to become America’s largest domestic producer of battery-grade lithium -- all without the need for further mining,” Bold Baatar, chief executive officer of Rio’s energy and minerals division, said in the statement. Currently the only supplier in the U.S. is Albemarle Corp.’s Silver Peak operation in Nevada, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Rio, the world’s No. 2 miner, has held discussions on the EV sector with key companies in the supply chain and executives have visited China’s battery producer Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. and electric automaker Tesla Inc., according to people familiar with the producer’s plans, who spoke on condition of anonymity as details of the talks are private. CATL declined to comment.
Tesla didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
A pilot plant being assembled at Boron -- about 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles -- under a $10 million first phase will produce about 10 metric tons a year of lithium carbonate equivalent by chemically processing material from the pile of decades-old mining waste.
Boron is part of a unit in California’s Death Valley that’s produced borates, materials used in laundry soap to components for nuclear reactors, since 1872. There’s at least 80 minerals to be found in material from the site, and staff had initially been combing the waste for gold and other elements when they discovered lithium, according to Rio.
Rio will next consider a $50 million investment to build an industrial-scale lithium plant with capacity for 5,000 tons a year that could begin making sales into the battery market. That volume would be sufficient for batteries needed in about 15,000 Tesla Model S cars, the company said.
how does that compare with us
350 million for ?
no waste to comb through only much waste of time .our spodumene costs.rio tinto gets it for free as waste product .
Lithium prices have sunk since mid-2018, ending a three-year surge, as new operations have added supply and amid some signs of demand weakness. There’s probably currently enough capacity to supply the global market until the mid-2020s, according to BNEF.
Rio previously weighed an offer for a stake in Soc. Quimica & Minera de Chile SA, one of the world’s top lithium producers, before deciding last year not to proceed.
what we need is a new management with credentials in the lithium industry
and a government willing to step in big time .
quebec could become a leader in battery production and be built on renewable energy .
we would be broke but at least we would live in a clean environment ,
gb is a lawyer and runs the company as his own without taking sharehoders interests at heart . .he has experience in gold mines not lithium mines .just like calgary .
electricity
it is getting cheaper all the time