GM Invests $650 Million to Co-Develop America’s Largest Known Lithium Deposit

February 02, 2023 at 09:52 AM EST

Lithium has become a battleground as electric vehicle (EV) makers look to secure new supply. General Motors just announced a $650 million investment in Lithium Americas to develop the Thacker Pass mine in Nevada, which should provide the automaker with enough lithium supply to support production of up to 1 million EVs per year.

GM isn’t the only automaker looking to secure lithium supplies. Last summer, Ford Motor Co announced a series of deals including Chinese battery maker CATL and mining giant Rio Tinto to accelerate its shift to EVs and plans to produce 600,000 EVs annually by 2023 and over two million by 2027.

Tesla has become more involved with the raw material supply chain for EV batteries, signing supply contracts with the world’s largest producer of battery-grade lithium, and Australia’s Liontown Resources. The EV giant is also signing contracts for offtake agreements with mining companies developing new projects. The company initially signed a supply deal with Piedmont Lithium, which is developing several lithium properties in North America, to buy roughly one-third of the planned 160,000 tonnes of annual spodumene lithium production from its North Carolina mine for a minimum of five years.

However, after delivery delays, the companies amended the agreement to purchase lithium from Piedmont’s North American Lithium in Quebec, which is expected to restart output in H2 2023. The 3-year binding agreement will include 125,000 metric tons of spodumene concentrate (SC6), a high-purity lithium ore with a lithium content of roughly 6%.

Still, more mining projects are needed. According to Benchmark Minerals Intelligence, these large investments planned by major lithium producers won’t be sufficient to meet EV production goals and new mines are needed.

In fact, billionaire mining financier Robert Friedland recently explained that a 1,000-pound EV requires 500,000 pounds of raw materials, meaning “to transition just the world’s passenger cars to electric, we have to mine more materials in the next 30 years than we mined throughout human history.”

Fortunately, there are several lithium projects being developed across North America, including one of the world’s largest recorded inferred lithium resources which is located in business-friendly Alberta, Canada.

E3 Lithium (TSXV:ETL) (OTXQC:EEMMF) has one of the largest inferred lithium resources in the world with 24.3 million tonnes (Mt) of Lithium Carbonate Equivalent (LCE). The company’s Clearwater Project is hosted in the world-class Leduc Aquifer. According to E3’s Preliminary Economic Assessment, the Clearwater Lithium Project has an NPV 8% of $1.1 Billion USD with a 32% IRR pre-tax and $820 Million with a 27% IRR after-tax.

Apart from its globally-significant lithium resource, E3 Lithium has developed a proprietary Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) Ion-Extraction Technology to extract lithium from brine to create a high-purity concentrate solution used in Li-ion batteries.

E3 Lithium Achieves Major Milestone for Pilot Plant

On February 2, E3 Lithium made a significant announcement that will propel the company further along the pathway to commercialization.

The company revealed that it’s on track to begin construction and operation of its Lithium Ion-Exchange (Li-IX) pilot plant in the Clearwater Project Area in Q3 2023 after making significant progress with the project last year, including completing the bulk of the word to design the pilot project to demonstrate its DLE technology and completing the first production of commercial-scale sorbent.

The pilot plant, which will put Li-IX technology to the test on a larger scale for direct lithium extraction in real-world operating conditions, is a crucial step in unlocking the value of E3 Lithium‘s world-class 24.3 million tonnes of inferred lithium resource. At the pilot scale, demonstrating Li-IX technology significantly de-risks the commercial design.

E3 Lithium’s pilot plant will consist of two main parts. The first part will move the Leduc brine water from the aquifer and perform pre-treatment for the Li-IX extraction process. The second part will house the ion-exchange medium to manage the extraction of the lithium from the brine and generate the concentrated lithium fluid.

The company is in full swing developing the detailed engineering, design, and construction plans for the plant, with the goal of commissioning equipment to site this summer.

For more information about E3 Lithium Ltd (TSXV:ETL) (OTCQX:EEMMF), please visit this link or their website at e3lithium.ca.

SOURCE E3 Lithium (TSXV:ETL) (OTXQC:EEMMF)

Featured Image @ Depositphotos

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6) This document contains forward-looking information and forward-looking statements, within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation, (collectively, “forward-looking statements”), which reflect management’s expectations regarding E3 Lithium Ltd.’s future growth, future business plans and opportunities, expected activities, and other statements about future events, results or performance. Wherever possible, words such as “predicts”, “projects”, “targets”, “plans”, “expects”, “does not expect”, “budget”, “scheduled”, “estimates”, “forecasts”, “anticipate” or “does not anticipate”, “believe”, “intend” and similar expressions or statements that certain actions, events or results “may”, “could”, “would”, “might” or “will” be taken, occur or be achieved, or the negative or grammatical variation thereof or other variations thereof, or comparable terminology have been used to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements include, among other things, statements relating to: (a) revenue generating potential with respect to E3 Lithium Ltd.’s industry; (b) market opportunity; (c) E3 Lithium Ltd.’s business plans and strategies; (d) services that E3 Lithium Ltd. intends to offer; (e) E3 Lithium Ltd.’s milestone projections and targets; (f) E3 Lithium Ltd.’s expectations regarding receipt of approval for regulatory applications; (g) E3 Lithium Ltd.’s intentions to expand into other jurisdictions including the timeline expectations relating to those expansion plans; and (h) E3 Lithium Ltd.’s expectations with regarding its ability to deliver shareholder value. Forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of future performance and are based upon a number of estimates and assumptions of management in light of management’s experience and perception of trends, current conditions and expected developments, as well as other factors that management believes to be relevant and reasonable in the circumstances, as of the date of this document including, without limitation, assumptions about: (a) the ability to raise any necessary additional capital on reasonable terms to execute E3 Lithium Ltd.’s business plan; (b) that general business and economic conditions will not change in a material adverse manner; (c) E3 Lithium Ltd.’s ability to procure equipment and operating supplies in sufficient quantities and on a timely basis; (d) E3 Lithium Ltd.’s ability to enter into contractual arrangements with additional Pharmacies; (e) the accuracy of budgeted costs and expenditures; (f) E3 Lithium Ltd.’s ability to attract and retain skilled personnel; (g) political and regulatory stability; (h) the receipt of governmental, regulatory and third-party approvals, licenses and permits on favorable terms; (i) changes in applicable legislation; (j) stability in financial and capital markets; and (k) expectations regarding the level of disruption to as a result of CV-19. Such forward-looking information involves a variety of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual plans, intentions, activities, results, performance or achievements of E3 Lithium Ltd. to be materially different from any future plans, intentions, activities, results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such risks include, without limitation: (a) E3 Lithium Ltd.’s operations could be adversely affected by possible future government legislation, policies and controls or by changes in applicable laws and regulations; (b) public health crises such as CV-19 may adversely impact E3 Lithium Ltd.’s business; (c) the volatility of global capital markets; (d) political instability and changes to the regulations governing E3 Lithium Ltd.’s business operations (e) E3 Lithium Ltd. may be unable to implement its growth strategy; and (f) increased competition.

Except as required by law, E3 Lithium Ltd. undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future event or otherwise, after the date on which the statements are made or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. Neither does E3 Lithium Ltd. nor any of its representatives make any representation or warranty, express or implied, as to the accuracy, sufficiency or completeness of the information in this document. Neither E3 Lithium Ltd. nor any of its representatives shall have any liability whatsoever, under contract, tort, trust or otherwise, to you or any person resulting from the use of the information in this document by you or any of your representatives or for omissions from the information in this document.

7) Any graphs, tables or other information demonstrating the historical performance or current or historical attributes of E3 Lithium Ltd. or any other entity contained in this document are intended only to illustrate historical performance or current or historical attributes of E3 Lithium Ltd. or such entities and are not necessarily indicative of future performance of E3 Lithium Ltd. or such entities.

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