While remaining confused, which seems to be the status-quo for me over the past six months, I wonder if there is absolutely nothing to AJN's claims, and it's just a fairy tale.
We know that AJN has form, and is not above making wild meritless announcements. Maybe it's just more of the same destabilising narrative circulated by a bunch of corrupt fat Africans and greedy Chinese rodents in order to get a slice of our pie.
View attachment 21187
Cheers
F
*No wonder every Chinaman and his Chihuahua, Cock Head Klaus and his German Shepherd are fighting for a slice of Manono,
To remind,
Canada orders three Chinese firms to exit lithium mining
Canada ordered three Chinese companies on Wednesday to divest their investments in Canadian critical minerals, citing national security.
China in response accused Ottawa of using national security as a pretext and said the divestment order broke international commerce and market rules.
As countries compete to shore up reserves of materials needed for a transition to a cleaner economy, the news pushed down the Chinese companies’ shares on Thursday, although they said in stock exchange filings they did not expect a major impact on their performance.
The three ordered to divest their investments are Sinomine (Hong Kong) Rare Metals Resources Co Ltd, Chengze Lithium International Ltd, also based in Hong Kong, and Zangge Mining Investment (Chengdu) Co Ltd.
The Canadian government ordered the divestiture after “rigorous scrutiny” of foreign firms by Canada’s national security and intelligence community, Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said in a statement.
mining.com
Albermarle reports eye watering quarterly net sales of US$2.1bn.
That’s almost $US1m PER HOUR
Albermarle, the world’s top lithium producer, reported a 152pc increase in quarterly net sales totalling US$2.1bn driven by strong lithium pricing and demand for lithium-ion batteries.
Adjusted EBITDA of US$1.2 billion also marked a 447pc increase on the year ago period, with lithium sales more than quadrupling to $1.5 billion due to the opening of new processing plants and several expansion projects underway in China, Chile, Australia and the United States.
Other highlights included net income of $897.2 million, or $7.61 per share, compared with a net loss of $392.8 million, or $3.36 per share, in the year-ago period.
“As one of the world’s largest producers of lithium, we are well positioned to enable the global energy transition,” Albermarle CEO Kent Masters says.
“With our acquisition of the Qinzhou lithium conversion plant in China and mechanical completion of our Kemerton II expansion in Australia, we are on track to more than double our lithium conversion capacity compared to last year.”
There’s $30 billion downstream to produce lithium batteries
The buzz phrase at the International Mining and Resources Showcase in Sydney this week is “critical minerals”, capturing both the need to develop battery supply chains in Australia and the genuine scarcity of these metals compared to demand in the coming decades.
One of the big questions for the resources sector and Australian Government is just how much work it can do to take its rich mineral endowment and convert it into a manufacturing powerhouse.
It is something Australia, which lost its car manufacturing industry several years ago, has rarely enjoyed.
Even its biggest export industry, iron ore, is founded on the relatively low capex and cost base associated with mining ore and shipping it at huge scale to be converted into steel in China.
But as the world’s largest producer of lithium for the emerging electric vehicle battery supply chain — WA’s hard rock spodumene mines supply around half of the world’s lithium carbonate equivalent production — experts say we are well placed to capture the added value normally left on the table downstream.
“In seven years’ time, we have to see a six-fold increase in the amount of hydroxide produced in order to meet what we think will be EV demand forecasts, that’s 25% compound annual growth,” CRU Group head of Australia and New Zealand Alex Tonks said.
“Not many commodities have grown like that. It is going to be difficult for the industry to keep up, but it is an enormous opportunity.
Food for thought
Frank
