Nemaska Lithium buys Quebec land, eyes Canada’s 1st processing plant

Nemaska Lithium has purchased a site and begun clearing land in Bécancour, Que., for construction of what could become Canada’s first processing plant capable of producing battery-grade lithium for electric vehicles.

The company, which is jointly owned by provincial investment firm Investissement Québec and U.S.-based chemical company Livent Corp., announced it had finalized the purchase of a plot of land from the Société du parc industriel et portuaire de Bécancour in early January.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Nemaska plans to build a lithium hydroxide conversion plant that would process lithium-rich spodumene mined at its Whabouchi mine in northern Quebec into a form ready to be used in EV batteries at the site. It began clearing land Jan. 20 to prepare for the start of construction this summer.

The milestone is the latest step in a major course correction for the homegrown mining company. A publicly traded entity through much of the 2010s, Nemaska was partway through construction of its mine and processing plant when it was forced into creditor protection in 2019 by cost overruns and sliding lithium prices.

Investissement Québec and partner Livent Corp., a General Motors supplier, committed to relaunching the company in June 2022 amid surging demand for EVs.

Nemaska’s planned hydroxide plant in Bécancour joins a series of other battery materials projects that are either proposed or under construction in the fast-growing battery hub midway between Montreal and Quebec City.

GM and Posco Chemical announced joint plans for a $500 million cathode active materials plant in the city last March. Germany’s BASF and miner Vale, among other chemical processors, are also advancing projects.

Nemaska’s lithium processing plant would have capacity to produce 34,000 tonnes of lithium hydroxide per year. Company spokeswoman Gabrielle Tellier said this is below the 40,000-tonne figure that requires a provincial environmental impact assessment, but the proposal still needs various environmental signoffs before it can move forward.

“We are confident that we will be able to obtain these authorizations as the various works progress,” she wrote in an email.

The company anticipates starting the roughly three-year construction period for the plant in Bécancour this summer.

Work on Nemaska’s Whabouchi mine will be carried out at the same time. The extraction site about 300 kilometres northwest of Chibougamau, Que. will provide feedstock for the Bécancour facility and “be completed in time for the commissioning of the processing plant,” Tellier said.

According to Livent’s most recent public disclosure, capital expenses for the hydroxide plant will run to between US$650 million and $750 million. Work on the mine will cost as much as $300 million, the company told investors in November. It noted the sources of funding have not yet been determined.

Nemaska’s pair of lithium assets are among the most advanced in Canada’s rapidly emerging battery supply chain.

Its Bécancour hydroxide plant could become the first of its kind to open in the country, though a series of other developers in Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba are concurrently working to get shovels in the ground on their own processing facilities.

After several false starts in the late 2010s, including Nemaska’s, Canada’s lithium industry is expected to kick into gear this year with the start-up of the North American Lithium mine in La Corne, Que. The joint venture between Australia’s Sayona Mining Ltd. and U.S.-based Piedmont Lithium Inc. is scheduled to start production by mid-year.

If current timelines hold, Nemaska’s pair of integrated projects will follow by 2026.