Retrobyte
Hates a beer
368 drill holes is an expensive program to come up with that tiny tonnage and piss poor grade. No wonder tailings are discards.
AVZ Discussion 2022
- Thread starter GazDix
- Start date
368 drill holes is an expensive program to come up with that tiny tonnage and piss poor grade. No wonder tailings are discards.
Samus
Top 20
We now KNOW with CERTAINTY that the AMOUNT DISBURSED by #XIJIN for the purchase of 15% of assets, IS NOT the famous $33.4million that Ms. MinPortefeuille and the leaders #COMINIERE DECLARED. Oust all thieves.
Our joy is to always be on the right side of history.
Swallow is good always
Frank
Top 20
GM will go to unusual lengths to secure EV battery minerals
General Motors Inc. is signaling it will reach further down the value chain to ensure it has the minerals it needs to become a major player in electric vehicles.
“We absolutely are convinced we need to have control of our own destiny when it comes to EV critical minerals,” Tanya Skilton, GM’s director of electric vehicle critical materials, said on an industry panel in Washington.
“At times we have engaged, for example, with the steel industry, with steel mills in our history, but to go all the way down to mine sites is new and unique for us at this stage.”
Competition for the minerals needed for the energy transition, such as copper, lithium and cobalt, is becoming more fierce as supplies fall short of demand.
It is forcing some automakers to change the way they source raw materials, going all the way down the value chain to procure metals directly from mines, a move that manufacturers historically avoided.
The auto industry traditionally left raw materials that come out of the ground to processors and equipment manufacturers.
Ford, CATL mull workaround for new US battery plant with US-China tensions high
Ford Motor Co. and China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. are considering building a battery manufacturing plant in Michigan in a complex arrangement designed to reap new tax benefits without running afoul of US-China political sensitivities.
The state has emerged along with Virginia as a potential home of the multibillion-dollar facility, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive negotiations. The factory will provide lithium iron phosphate batteries for Ford’s electric models.
The companies are weighing a novel ownership structure under which Ford would own 100% of the plant, including the building and the infrastructure, while CATL would operate the factory and own the technology to build the cells, the people said.
Such an arrangement would let the facility qualify for lucrative production tax credits under the new Inflation Reduction Act while requiring no direct financial investment from CATL.
The Chinese government has discouraged CATL from investing in the US due to tensions with Beijing’s top geopolitical rival, according to the people.
The battery maker paused plans this summer to establish a new facility in North America after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan further strained relations between the superpowers, Bloomberg reported in August.
The proposal is just one option that has emerged since the IRA was signed into law in August, and it’s still far from being a done deal, the people said.
The lack of clarity around specific content requirements in the IRA is also impacting the decision, and sites in Mexico and Canada haven’t been ruled out.
Shares in CATL jumped 5.3% Thursday, the biggest gain in two months. Ford shares fell 2.2% to $13.18 as of 9:43 a.m. in New York.
The Treasury Department is scheduled to issue guidance finalizing the content requirements and tax credits of the IRA by the end of this month.
‘Still deliberating’
“CATL is still deliberating on investing in the US and we have not made the decision yet,” the battery maker said in an emailed statement.“There are multiple models being discussed regarding our investment in the US, and all of those choices are purely based on and only based on business concerns.”
The company, which already has a deal to sell batteries to Ford for use in its flagship F-150 Lightning and Mustang Mach-E vehicles, said it’s “not true” that the Chinese government objects to CATL investing in the US.
China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Thursday it was unaware of the situation.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington had no immediate response to a request for comment.
Ford said in a statement that “our talks with CATL continue — and we have nothing new to announce.”
If the Dearborn, Michigan-based carmaker opts for Virginia or elsewhere, it would mark another high-profile snub of its home state.
Ford opted to build battery hubs in Tennessee and Kentucky in its initial $11 billion investment with South Korea’s SK Innovation Co.
Securing enough batteries to build millions of plug-in models has become a key competitive battleground in the emerging EV market.
In addition to Ford’s joint venture with SK, General Motors Co. has established a partnership with South Korea’s LG Energy Solution Ltd. to build battery plants in the US.
“It is incredibly important to own the battery value chain, there’s no doubt,” Lisa Drake, Ford’s vice president of EV industrialization, said in an interview Tuesday on the sidelines of a Ford technology event.
That “is why we are controlling the raw materials ourselves, nickel, lithium, etc.”
She declined to comment on the specifics of negotiations with CATL.
Cost competitive
CATL, the world’s biggest maker of batteries for electric vehicles, has been considering locations in Mexico and the US to supply cells to automakers including Ford and Tesla Inc., Bloomberg reported earlier this year.But the production tax credit in the IRA, worth as much as $35 per kilowatt hour for each cell produced, could make manufacturing batteries in the US cheaper than in Mexico, according to the people familiar with the matter. The subsidies also offset US tariffs on raw materials imported from China.
Ford announced its partnership with CATL in July, saying it had secured 70% of the battery capacity needed to build more than 2 million EVs annually starting in 2026, a goal set by Chief Executive Officer Jim Farley.
On Ford’s third-quarter earnings call in October, Farley was asked about the status of the CATL partnership given tensions between the US and China. Farley said Ford could “economically” import lithium iron phosphate, or LFP, batteries from China, but alluded to other options to localize production.
“The real billion-dollar question is, when do you localize production of LFP in North America?,” he said on the call.
“Whose name is on the front of the building?”
Food for thought on the Road to Mining Manono Bro
Cheers
Frank
Samus
Top 20
Cominière: Adèle Kanyinda still and always caught in the bag
Selling off mining assets: after being caught hand in the bag in a report published by the IGF, Minister of Portfolio ADELE KAHINDA hires hungry journalists to defend her financial predation with her clan of financial predators.
Cominière file: His Chief of Staff sheds more light on the involvement of the Minister of Portfolio Adele Kahinda
Sell-off of mining assets: Deaconess Adele Kahinda circumvented min. of mines and the technical organ of the govt. to proceed with the sale of COMINIERE's shares. Mrs. Adele Kahinda nailed by her own Dircab who confirms the sale of COMINIERE's assets.
When is someone in authority going to actually say that the 15% sale is null and void? Plenty of condemnation for the cheap sale but that’s where it’s stopped
DiscoDanNZ
Regular
MoneyBags1348
Top 20
What you need to realise is that CATH (or rather CATL) is the biggest Li Battery Manufacturer in the world…. If the US want to manufacture Li batteries in Africa it will be compromised by the fact that CATH have offtake agreements in place for our SC6 (whether it be in raw or processed form??)…. And if the the US want it to manufacture Li batteries, then that might compromise the CATH TIA.
It’s all well and good as long as the US provides our financing (including the $20mil we will lose if we break the CATH TIA)…. I also don’t know how much of our product the US can contract in offtake when most of it is already under contract.
Though the news sounds positive overall, the above are just a few things to weigh up when considering our position
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Mr Inappropriate
Regular
Gold!
Most of the 4.5 mtpa is under contract but if US want to help in a 10mtpa with CATH at 9 % it is a win win as CATH through its link with CATL will be supplying car majors I'm the USA.
Why and how the DG of CAMI can hold up the surface rights is the issue IMO.
Unless parts of CDL remains unclear as management have never specifically said that CDL conflict is resolved.
DG of CAMI and the Green Grub are Chinese puppets . The Chinese want the ML . Read the Zijin report from May this year.
Xerof
Have a Cigar 1975
Binding off takes so far based on 4.5mt pa (700k concentrate):
Ganfeng 160kmt pa, 5 years plus another 5years at their option
Chenxing 180kmt pa, 3 years, extended at MUTUAL agreement
Yibin (CATL) 200kmt pa, 3 years plus 2 more at their option
CATH (CATL) will take up to 50% of annual production if expand to 10mt pa (1600mt concentrate), so 800kmt to them (not sure if this excludes or includes Yibin supply)
There is some allowance for PLS within the first 3 contracts, IIRC about 45kmt pa for this
Overall, lions share would go to China in early years, but remember, CATH is yet to be signed off
Not a lot left for anyone else eh?
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