European Lithium Ltd provided an update on the progress of its proposed merger, NASDAQ listing and additional equity investment.
The company confirms that Critical Metals Corp has secured an equity investment facility for additional capital and it is expected to secure more capital in the coming weeks, leading up to shareholder approval of the transaction.
The lithium would be used for electric car batteries and is described by the mining company as critical for Europe’s transition to green energy.
Portugal’s lithium reserves are considered central to Europe’s increasing demand for electric cars, but the villagers say it doesn’t justify ruining their way of life.
“It would destroy everything,” says Aida Fernandes, as she looks across the valley where four opencast pits would border the village of Covas do Barroso in northern Portugal.
Aida, like generations before her, farms cattle in this lush, unspoilt region which has UN Food and Agricultural Heritage status for its landscape and farming traditions.
She deftly manoeuvres a tractor-load of brushwood which she’s spent the afternoon cutting from common land owned jointly by the community. Next she spreads the springy branches across the floor of the barn for bedding for her cattle.
Common land is key to a dispute over plans for a new opencast mine – the Barroso Lithium Project – which would produce enough lithium for 500,000 electric car batteries a year over its 14-year operational life.
But three quarters of the mine depends on accessing lithium deposits found in rocks on common land in the area, with the majority owned by the village.
Aida is president of the Baldios – or common land association – which has rejected international mining company Savannah Resource’s financial offer to lease the land currently used for forestry and pasture.
The European Union is keen to reduce its dependence on mines in China, Africa and South America for lithium and other raw materials needed for the green energy transition.
The Barroso mine could be one of the first large-scale mines to supply battery grade lithium within Europe and in May Portugal’s Environment Agency gave Savannah Resources, which is based in London, the conditional go-ahead.
They had revised their original proposals and agreed to changes such as not taking water from the local river. They must also build a new road to avoid the villages and fill in the opencast pits when mining there is finished.
But opposition is still strong and Aida says that at the meetings they’ve had, “There isn’t anyone who’s in favour.” She says that in spite of the changes, “this is not good for us or for the environment” and they will fight on.
If an agreement isn’t reached the Portuguese government could expropriate the land.
Savannah also wants to buy private land from people like Maria Loureiro, who farms at the other end of the village. She grows olive trees and has cows which trot past us with bells jingling around their necks.
“We’re not for sale, we don’t want to sell,” she tells me. She resents the offers of compensation and royalties for the area. “If I sold my land, what would I do?” she asks. She would also lose access to pasture on the common land if the mine went ahead.
This is echoed by Fernando Queiroga, mayor of the municipality of Boticas, which includes the village of Covas do Barroso. He says that even if people are compensated for the duration of the mine they “will never go back to producing agricultural products again because in the meantime they’ll leave or they’ll just give up farming”.
He’s finalising a legal challenge to the conditional approval of the project. “If the national courts don’t give us our answer, we’ll appeal to the European Court,” he says.
Dale Ferguson, the Australian interim CEO of Savannah Resources, says they’ve “listened to the community” and have made changes but concedes that “there always is some level of impact”.
He believes the mine is “really critical for the energy transition for Europe”. He admits though, that with legal challenges, “the courts will make those ultimate decisions but we respect everybody’s rights and everybody’s opinions”.
Portugal’s Secretary of State for Energy and Climate, Ana Fontoura Gouveia, is backing the Barroso mine and further exploitation of lithium in Portugal. She says the mine will bring new jobs and funding through royalties to the area. The legal action, she claims, is simply part of the democratic process.
But does she see this as a test case for the rest of Portugal and Europe? “I see it as a best practice case and we are keen to show that you can do mining in Europe in the 21st Century with the highest standards and to the benefits of local populations,” she says.
The rest of Europe will be watching the outcome closely, as pressure grows across the continent to open new mines for raw materials needed for the green transport and energy of the future.
Eramet aims to start producing lithium in Argentina in the second quarter of next year under the first phase of its joint venture with steel giant Tsingshan, part of Eramet’s shift towards minerals needed for electric vehicle batteries.This is lower than a $1.7 billion projection given by Tsingshan. It would double the estimated $735 million cost of the project’s first phase.
Eramet will share costs with Tsingshan. It will also raise $400 million in a deal with miner Glencore to market lithium from the project’s first stage.
Bories said Chinese investors are typically keen on mining projects internationally, but European banks are held back by onerous ESG requirements.
“The worst is Europe. Banks ask thousands of pages of questions on ESG and due diligence,” she said in an interview before the LME Week gathering of the global metals industry.
“We have no problem providing the evidence … but at the end of the day the whole process can take 18 months.”
The European Union, which unveiled its Critical Raw Materials Act in March to try to secure supplies of critical raw materials for electric vehicles including lithium, cobalt and nickel, has urged European financiers to provide more funding to mineral suppliers.
Eramet has previously criticised Europe for being slow to develop supply chains for critical minerals, saying that encouraged it to turn to Tsingshan first as a partner for a nickel mine in Indonesia and then to co-develop its lithium deposit in Argentina.
The partners plan to reach output of 24,000 metric tons of lithium carbonate equivalent annually under the first phase of their Argentine project, with the potential second stage seeking to raise production to 75,000 tons.
Eramet is also studying a plan with German chemical group BASF to produce battery-grade nickel and cobalt from ore extracted at Eramet’s Indonesian mine.
The French group has pushed back a deadline for a decision to next year, with Bories saying it needed more time to find the right approach to meet Western standards.
A plant which will refine lithium – a material used in electric car batteries – is to be built on Teesside.
Green Lithium, which it said would be the first large-scale facility in the UK, will be located at PD Ports’ Teesport site after getting approval from Redcar and Cleveland Council.
The company said it was “confident” the plant would open in 2027. It added more than 1,000 jobs would be created during construction, with about 250 more when it opens.
Chief executive officer Sean Sargent said: “I’m confident we’ve got a great team together and a lot of delivery partners supporting us and that gives me the confidence that we know what we are doing and we’ve got a team in place that understands the risk profile of a project of this nature and knows how to overcome those risks.
“The next step is we’ve got to complete a fundraising round that’s going on at the moment.”
The company said the plant would provide an alternative market for European electric car manufacturers who are reliant on China and East Asia, where 89% of the world’s lithium is currently refined.
Lithium is a key component in rechargeable batteries that power numerous gadgets such as smartphones and laptops, as well as electric cars.
Last month the mining of battery-grade lithium carbonate in Cornwall was announced.
It is expected the Teesport plant will produce 50,000 tonnes of battery-grade lithium chemicals to provide batteries for one million EV car batteries every year.
The 58-acre site was chosen because of its access to a deep-water port, locally supplied renewable energy and hydrogen gas.
As well as refining lithium for EV batteries, the chemical will also be used in the production of lithium-ion batteries and energy storage.
Green Lithium hopes the plant will encourage more gigafactories, which produce batteries, to be built in the UK.
It said over the next three-and-a-half years it would spend 14 months designing the plant and then 28 months building it.
Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council leader Alec Brown, Labour, said it demonstrated the developer’s “significant confidence in our area”.
“This investment will create hundreds of jobs supporting electric vehicle production and the decarbonisation of the UK.
“With the port on our doorsteps, this will hopefully draw other industries linked to battery production to Teesside.”
Metso has modernised its pilot facility at Metso Research Center in Pori, Finland, with expanded capabilities for lithium hydroxide (LiOH) and other battery chemicals process testing. The unique pilot line serves mining and battery industry customers processing battery minerals. In connection with the expansion, Metso has also opened a battery materials precursor (pCAM) pilot plant, available now for customer trials.
“Pilot run requests for battery minerals like lithium, nickel and cobalt have increased significantly during the last three years. Currently, we are working on several battery black mass recycling and precursor projects and have several lithium and other battery chemicals project pilots on our laboratory schedule,” says Janne Karonen, Director for Hydrometallurgical Research & Development at Metso.
Process simulations are essential in the piloting phase, supporting process and equipment design, training and plant operation. For this purpose, Metso uses its unique metallurgical digital twin Geminex, which is based on the company’s proprietary HSC-Sim software for predictive process simulations. Pilot plant and real-time plant data enrich the simulation model to accurately predict plant behavior.
Metso has developed sustainable hard rock lithium soda leaching technologies for 20 years already. The pilot facility expansion it says “complements Metso’s frontrunning piloting capabilities for minerals processing and metals refining, enabling minerals and battery industry customers to have end-to-end testing, piloting services and technology and equipment deliveries from one supplier.”
Metso’s expertise in battery minerals covers the extraction of lithium from brines and pegmatite ores up to battery-grade lithium salts. These patented processes are designed to meet the needs for high-end lithium-ion battery chemicals production. Metso can provide sustainable technology and equipment for the entire lithium, nickel and cobalt production chain – from the mine to battery materials and black mass recycling – with project scopes ranging from equipment packages to plant deliveries.
Serbia’s Minister of Mining and Energy Dubravka Đedović Handanović said on Thursday that it is necessary to “responsibly consider” how to approach her country’s critical natural resources – which includes lithium – in the future.
“If we want to develop, then we should use natural potentials, but also do everything to minimise risks, especially in the area of the environment,” Minister Đedović Handanović said. “It is important that we do not look at this issue exclusively through the exploitation of mineral wealth, but also as the possibility of obtaining a value chain, which would also mean factories for the production of batteries and electric vehicles. The world is moving towards a new industrial order and it is up to us to see if we want to be part of that order, and we have all the prerequisites for that.”
The Mining and Energy made a similar point on Tuesday: when asked about the potential exploitation of lithium in Serbia, she responded by saying that her country needs to consider how to utilise such resources in terms of closing the value chain.
“Serbia is extremely rich in mineral resources that are also on the EU’s list of critical mineral resources. We stopped the ‘Jadar’ project before we had a chance to see the results of the Environmental Impact Assessment. We should consider how we can utilise the wealth we possess in terms of closing the value chain, which would mean factories for battery and electric vehicle production,” Minister Đedović Handanović said on Tuesday.
The Jadar deposit is estimated to be one of the largest lithium deposits in the world, according to the think-tank Blue Europe. The Jadar mining project, located in western Serbia, had been started by British-Australian mining company Rio Tinto before the company’s license was revoked in 2022 due to environmental concerns about the project.
However, a report by German tabloid Hadensblatt in December 2022 on a confidential list of investments under the EU’s “Global Gateway” initiative – including a lithium mine in Serbia – has led to speculations that the Jadar project may be revisited in the future.
The Romano lithium mine, proposed for Montalegre in Portugal’s northern district of Vila Real, has received a favourable conditional environmental impact statement from the Portuguese Environment Agency, but environmentalists are concerned about its impact.
One of Portugal’s largest environmental associations, Zero, reacted on Thursday with concern about the viability of the Romano lithium mine in Montalegre, saying it was “absurd” to separate the project between the mine and the refinery, which will be subject to a separate Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA).
“It’s worrying, and we’re talking once again about a project with high environmental, social and economic impacts, which is the subject of a favourable conditional opinion,” Nuno Forner from Zero told Lusa on Thursday.
“This opinion has a particular aspect, which is that part of the mining annexes complex is going to be the subject of a separate process, which we think is absurd, to say the least,” Forner added.
“Separating the project into several parts doesn’t make any sense,” he said.
The Portuguese Environment Agency (APA) issued a favourable report regarding the mine.
The APA’s decision is “favourable conditioned for mining and solution two (to the south-east of the mining area) for the location of the waste facility.”
As for the location of the refinery, washing plant and administrative buildings, the report said “it should be further analysed under a separate procedure” and should preferably focus on the location corresponding to solution A if “the project’s incompatibility with the Montalegre Municipal Master Plan is overcome”.
“We are concerned that the compensation and minimisation measures mention the possibility of the population being compensated in monetary terms so that they can buy another house or another plot of land or even be compensated for ending their agricultural activity,” said Forner.
This, in his opinion, “clearly shows that this is a project with major impacts”, particularly on the social component, which “can hardly be minimised” and that “the solution will be to push people out of the area.”
This is the second lithium project approved in Portugal after the favourable study conditioned on the Barroso mine (in May), proposed by Savannah for Covas do Barroso, in the neighbouring municipality of Boticas.
European Lithium Ltd (ASX:EUR, OTCQB:EULIF) has taken another step toward becoming Europe’s first local producer of battery-grade lithium on being granted new mining licenses and extensions which double the footprint of the advanced Wolfsberg Lithium Project in Austria.
A public hearing conducted by the Austrian Mining Authority has resulted in the new licenses and extensions, which come as the continent marches on in the strengthening transition to green energy.
The company has been granted six new mining licenses while three existing licenses have been extended with one of the extensions applying to the existing Andreas field and two to the newly assigned Barbara field.
European Lithium chairman Tony Sage said: “The grant of these mining licenses further reinforces our belief that Wolfsberg will be the first local producer of battery-grade lithium in Europe to fuel the green energy transition.
“The Wolfsberg Project benefits from Austria’s robust and mature mining industry that reflects many of the aims of the EU’s proposed Critical Raw Materials Act, including a fast track for critical projects like ours.”
Wolfsberg Project tenement map.
EUR’s mining licenses now extend beyond the existing Wolfsberg lithium resource and almost double the project’s footprint.
There are now 20 licenses covering the Wolfsberg Project, which almost double the footprint for the proposed underground mining operations.
The licenses and extensions flow on from the Wolfsberg Project Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) released in March 2023 in which mine planning and design incorporated an expanded resource.
At the time, EUR identified several mining fields extending outside existing license areas that had the potential to be mined in the future.
Since the DFS, the company applied for a new mining field, called Barbara, adjacent to the existing mining field called Andreas, which contains 11 mining licenses.
The Barbara mining field provides the company with six new licenses along with the three extended licenses.
READ: European Lithium strengthens critical minerals portfolio on securing Austrian projects with sample grades up to 3.98%
European Lithium has also recently increased its Austrian critical minerals portfolio by securing other projects separate to Wolfsberg which have returned sample grades up to 3.98% and have potential to add to the company’s lithium bounty.
“The grant of the new mining licenses and license extensions provides significant upside to mining operations in the future,” the company’s CEO, Dietrich Wanke, said.
“We are encouraged by this successful grant as we move toward operational readiness of the Wolfsberg Project,” he added.