by In order to get rid of the dependence on the above-mentioned countries, the French mining company Imerys recently announced that it plans to develop lithium mines in the existing mines of Beauvoir in central France. The move will help Imerys become a major supplier of battery materials for electric vehicles in Europe.
Imerys aims to mine at the Beauvoir mine for 25 years starting in 2028 and produce 34,000 tonnes of lithium hydroxide per year. This will not only become the largest lithium mine project in Europe, but is also expected to provide the raw materials needed for batteries for 700,000 electric vehicles every year. The Zoe, a cheap electric car from the French carmaker Renault, plays an important role in the EU’s emission reduction policy, and the French government has set a goal of producing 2 million electric cars a year by 2030.
According to the report, Imerys will negotiate with stakeholders including automobile manufacturers, industrial and financial sectors, and then decide on the form of investment and the scale of the project. The tentative project will start in mid-2025, with an investment of about 1 billion euros (about 7.92 billion Hong Kong dollars). Imerys emphasizes mining in a low-emission way, including using existing mines, and using electric vehicles as an aid wherever possible. Similar plans in Serbia earlier attracted opposition, and the government withdrew the relevant license, but this time the French government gave the green light, believing that the French electric vehicle industry can reduce its dependence on Asia-Pacific and South American countries in terms of lithium metal in the future.
Data and picture sources:reuters
unwire.hk Mewe page: https://mewe.com/p/unwirehk
