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SHANGHAI (Reuters) – The global nickel market and its key growth sector, electric vehicle (EV) batteries, will face grave supply shortages unless key Chinese-led projects in Indonesia start up in a timely and cost-effective manner, analysts said.

“The real issue is how quickly the Chinese investors and technology can deliver these projects to the market,” Jim Lennon, senior commodities consultant at Macquarie, told the Fastmarkets Battery Materials conference in Shanghai.

Read more at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-metals-nickel/nickel-shortage-in-view-unless-china-led-projects-in-indonesia-succeed-analysts-idUSKCN1RN0V3

A new national lithium research hub in Western Australia is hoped to take the state a step closer to developing a battery manufacturing industry.

The $135 million centre, announced today, will operate out of Curtin University in Perth and will look at how to better source minerals and process them into chemicals that are used to develop batteries.

The research centre will be jointly funded by the Federal Government, the State Government and industry to the tune of $53 million.

It will also receive $82 million of in-kind support from the sector.

Read more at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-10/new-$135m-lithium-battery-research-centre-for-wa/10990222

U.S. government officials plan to meet with executives from automakers and lithium miners in early May as part of a first-of-its-kind effort to launch a national electric vehicle supply chain strategy, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

While Volkswagen AG, Tesla Inc and other electric-focused automakers and battery manufacturers are expanding in the United States and investing billions in the new technology, they are reliant on mineral imports without a major push to develop more domestic mines and processing facilities.

China already dominates the electric vehicle supply chain. It produces nearly two-thirds of the world’s lithium-ion batteries – compared to 5 percent for the United States – and controls most of the world’s lithium processing facilities, according to data from Benchmark Minerals Intelligence, which tracks prices for lithium and other commodities and is organizing the Washington, D.C., event.

Read more at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-lithium-exclusive/exclusive-united-states-sets-sights-on-china-in-new-electric-vehicle-push-idUSKCN1RH1TU

Chinese electric vehicle manufacturers deployed 253% more nickel in passenger EV batteries in January this year compared to 2018.

The jump is due to an ongoing shift from lithium iron phosphate (LFP) to nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM) cathodes.

The average EV registered in China in January 2019 contained nearly double the mass of battery metals/materials as the year prior

First generation NCM batteries contained around a third cobalt with a chemical composition of 111 – 1 part nickel, 1 part cobalt and 1 part manganese, but NCM batteries with higher nickel content (622 and 523 chemistries) have become standard in China.

The largest market for passenger EV battery nickel, ahead of Japan and the US, which were the two largest markets in January 2018. Nickel used in car batteries jumped 88% in Germany and 54% in the US year on year.

The EV boom is China is only accelerating says despite being a seasonally-slow month in January 2019, 3.27 GWh of passenger EV battery capacity was deployed in the world’s largest car market, an increase of 439% over January 2018 levels:

Even more remarkable, from January 2018 through January 2019, the sales-weighted average passenger EV battery capacity in China increased by a staggering 95%, from 14.9 kWh to 29.1 kWh, meaning that the average EV registered in China in January 2019 contained nearly double the mass of battery metals/materials as the year prior.

The price of nickel is up more than 20% in 2019 as stocks held in warehouses around the world registered with the London Metal Exchange fall to multi-year lows.

Read more at: http://www.mining.com/chinese-electric-vehicle-makers-gorging-nickel/

The CO₂ capture unit is currently undergoing pre-operation verifications of each of the unit’s systems, after which the unit is expected to begin its operation and the first tonnes of CO₂ are expected to be captured. Shortly thereafter, the Corporation expects to ramp up the overall capture rate to reach the unit’s nominal capacity of 30 tonnes of CO₂ per day. Once the capture unit reaches its nominal capacity, a six-month demonstration period is expected to begin, after which the Corporation would begin generating revenues from the sale of the CO₂ to Serres Toundra.

Read more at: https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/co2-solutions-announces-fiscal-2019-second-quarter-results-and-saint-felicien-project-update-874632512.html

The company uses CO2 sourced from industrial emitters. The technology is retrofitted into existing concrete plants, and equipment injects the CO2 into a hopper or central mixer.

“Once injected into the wet concrete mix, the CO2 reacts with calcium ions from cement to form a nano-sized calcium carbonate mineral that becomes permanently embedded in the concrete,” the Halifax, Nova Scotia, company explains on its website.

Read more at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffkart/2019/02/23/carboncure-technology-says-goodbye-to-carbon-dioxide-hello-to-greener-concrete/#d93a13673110

In a belated response to falling fresh-water levels in desert areas, Chile is moving to protect a natural resource that has been depleted after decades of mining activity.

With complaints from local communities rising and the effects of climate change worsening, the world’s largest copper producer is planning to implement measures that will make it more difficult for miners to pump fresh water.

Read more at: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-21/chile-squeezing-water-rights-for-copper-lithium-miners-in-north

WASHINGTON: India and China are leading the way in greening lands, thanks to ambitious tree-planting programs and intensive agriculture in both countries, NASA satellite data has shown.

The world is getting literally greener than it was 20 years ago, the study published in the latest edition in Nature Sustainability said.

It showed that at least 25 per cent of the global foliage expansion since the early 2000s came from China, with India close behind.

This surprising new development detected by NASA satellites showed that the two nations with the world’s biggest populations were leading the way with their ambitious tree planting programs and intensive agriculture.

Read more at:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/67972829.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

#LA PAZ, Feb 6 (#Reuters) – #Bolivia has chosen a #Chinese consortium to help it produce #Lithium, the government, giving #China a potential foothold in the country’s huge untapped reserves of the prized electric battery metal.

China’s Xinjiang TBEA Group Co Ltd will hold a 49 percent stake in a joint venture with Bolivia’s state lithium company YLB, the Bolivian firm said. Together, the two companies will produce lithium and other materials from the Coipasa and Pastos Grandes salt flats in the Bolivian Andes, with an estimated investment of at least $2.3 billion.

Read more at: https://www.nasdaq.com/article/bolivia-picks-chinese-partner-for-23-bln-lithium-project-20190206-00951

Billionaire investor Robert Friedland said the copper deposit Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. is developing in the Democratic Republic of Congo has the potential to become the world’s No. 2 mine for the metal.

“Kamoa-Kakula will become the world’s second-largest copper mine with peak annual production of more than 700,000 tons of copper metal,” Ivanhoe founder Friedland said Wednesday at a mining conference in Cape Town.

Friedland announced the findings of an independent pre-feasibility study after Ivanhoe invested $800 million in exploration and development. The capacity of the project’s first phase, producing 6 million tons of ore a year, could later be tripled, the company said. Initial mine grades will average 6.8 percent copper, with production expected to start in 2021.

Read more at: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-06/ivanhoe-says-congo-project-can-become-world-s-no-2-copper-mine-jrt295uf