Ford plans to build EV battery plant in Michigan with Chinese partner
Ford Motor Co. and Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. plan to build a battery plant in Michigan, according to people familiar with the matter, capping a months-long search that became mired in geopolitical tensions between the US and China.
Ford is moving ahead with the project despite uncertainty around how the US Treasury Department will interpret requirements in President Joe Biden’s signature climate package, the Inflation Reduction Act.
The law is designed to withhold consumer tax credits for EVs made with a certain amount of China-linked materials in their batteries.
“We’ve said that we’re exploring batteries based on CATL’s technology for Ford vehicles and that we plan to localize” production in North America, Ford said in an emailed statement.
Ford announced in July it will begin using less expensive lithium iron phosphate battery packs from CATL on its Mustang Mach-E models this year and F-150 Lightning pickups in early 2024, which will boost output of those popular vehicles.
Ford has said it has a plan to source 40 gigawatt hours of those batteries annually in North America in 2026, but would initially import them from China.
Ford is investing $50 billion broadly to develop and build electric vehicles and plans to produce 2 million a year by the end of 2026.
The automaker was the No. 2 seller of EVs in the US last year, well behind Tesla Inc., which controls almost two-thirds of the American market.
mining.com
The case for tin should be stronger every year…
Tin has a number of monikers.
The ‘spice metal’ — because a dash of it seems to be in just about everything — and the ‘forgotten battery metal’ are two.
And it would be easy to forget it was one of the base metals which saw a volatile 2022, with prices rising to all time highs of around US$50,000/t early last year following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
That came around the same time as similar pops in nickel and copper.
Unlike nickel, which held most of its gains (barring one crazy day when trading was suspended at over US$100,000/t) throughout last year, tin went into a deep funk.
In the end prices fell almost 37% to US$24,808/t by year’s end and at one point temporarily traded sub-US$18,000/t, cutting into the profitability of many producers.
Since the start of this year prices have risen 12% to US$27,745/t, and had at one point in January lifted to over US$32,000/t, levels high enough to incentivise new sources of production.
The commodity’s strong January is multi-faceted.
Protests saw the suspension of production at Minsur’s San Rafael mine in Peru, the world’s second largest individual source of tin metal and 9% of global raw material supply.
Major producer Indonesia, successful in turning its nickel industry into the largest in the world after banning metal ore exports almost a decade ago, is considering an export ban on tin ores this year as well. That has placed uncertainty in the market.
Meanwhile, demand has been recovering in China along with macroeconomic forces that have been positive for commodity demand with the end of its Covid Zero policies late last year.
And many big industry names are starting to take notice of the long overlooked commodity.
Yamana Gold founder Peter Marrone last week said the metal — previously extracted in mines now more fashionable as lithium producers like Greenbushes —
was a key focus for him after his company’s US$4.8 billion sale to Pan American Silver and Agnico Eagle.
Beyond the short-term volatility, what does the long term outlook for tin have in store?
Jeremy Pearce from the ITA says solar ribbon, a solder-coated copper ribbon visible on the front of all solar panels, has grown from a low base to 22,000tpa of tin use in 2022.
By 2030 that is forecast to rise to 55,000tpa.
EVs are also more tin intensive than internal combustion engine cars, with more electronics and tin-copper electricals. The ITA forecasts an additional 10,000tpa by 2030 there, with another 10,000tpa potentially from digitisation 5G.
Pearce says there is an urgent need to invest in more of the critical but oft overlooked battery metal.
“(We see) no major increases this year but some new operations/expansions next year,” he told
Stockhead from London via email.
“South America will steadily increase. Ditto Africa.
Some new secondary supply is coming in through the copper circuit.
“Supply pressure depends on how long macroeconomic disruptions hold back (the) technology demand curve … we might expect significant deficits after 2025.
“There is an urgent need to invest in more capacity.”
Get tin on the radar
As the effective glue of modern electronics, the supply chain for tin and its uses has a large concentration in China, which both produces and uses around half of all tin, according to Pearce.
It has no net exports to write home about, but its tin mines have become static and supplies from neighbouring Myanmar have been declining, meaning it is increasingly hoovering up tin from around the world.
Could tin scale US$50,000/t highs again?
Tin’s remarkable rise to ~US$50,000/t last year — around 60% above historic highs — was short-lived, with macroeconomic forces common to other base metals hammering it to a 37% loss for 2022.
While recovering supply and demand destruction from inflation played a role, in one sense it was disconnected from its fundamentals.
Warehouse tin stocks
were down to just days’ worth in early 2022 and while they have recovered somewhat, they remain at a measure of weeks rather than months.
Don't forget the
Food for thought
Frank