The agreement will provide 125,000 tons of lithium-rich spodumene concentrate between 2023 and 2025.
The North American Lithium mine is located nearby Val-d’Or, in Quebec.
Tesla had planed another mine in North Carolina before this new Canadian source for the precious material.
By mid-2023, the American carmaker Tesla will start using Canadian lithium in the batteries used to power its electric vehicles. Tesla will source its precious lithium at a mine located near Val-d’Or, Quebec, more specifically the North American Lithium mine, co-developed by Piedmont Lithium Inc.
The agreement involves 125,000 tons of lithium-rich spodumene concentrate to be delivered from the second half of 2023 to the end of 2025. Piedmont Lithium Inc. was initially expected to tap into another mine in North Carolina, west of Charlotte, but the site is still in the pre-production and permitting phase. That lithium source was expected to come online in mid-2022.
“The landscape for electric vehicles and critical battery materials has changed significantly since 2020, and this agreement reflects the importance of – and growing demand for – a North American lithium supply chain […] This agreement ensures that these critical QC resources remain in North America and supports the mission of the Inflation Reduction Act to sustain the U.S. supply chain, the clean energy economy and global decarbonization,” Keith Phillips, Piedmont’s CEO, said in a statement.
Piedmont is a minority shareholder in the lithium mine in the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region, with the other partner being Australia’s Sayona Mining Ltd. since acquiring the project in 2021. The two mining companies have received the green light (from the authorities) in December to begin work at the site.
This mine is only one of many in Canada which is targeted by some projects of battery production plant and mines for the extraction of precious lithium essential to the production of batteries. In fact, Tesla announced last spring that it had just signed an agreement with the mining company Vale for Class 1 nickel.
