The Northern Miner July 25 2022 Issue 15

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ASHLEY KIRWAN ON STARTING A DATA BUSINESS AT ‘THE WORST POSSIBLE TIME’ / 2 Geotech_Earlug_2016_Alt2.pdf 1 2016-06-24 4:27:20 PM

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Umicore to build $1.5B battery materials factory in Ontario | Plant will be the ‘missing link’ between Canada’s resource wealth and the EV value chain, says CEO

ELECTRIC VEHICLES

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BY NAIMUL KARIM

elgium-based Umicore, a circular materials technology firm, plans to invest $1.5 billion to build a manufacturing plant in Ontario for cathode active battery materials and their precursor ingredients. The company aims to start construction in 2023 and kick off operations at the end of 2025, with the goal of supplying battery components to about 1 million electric vehicles a year by 2030. Umicore signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Canadian government to finalize details of the federal support it will receive for the project. The plant will be situated in Loyalist Township, about 18 km west of Kingston. “We have reached a deal with Umicore to build a new battery facility in Loyalist Township,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said at a press conference in Kingston, adding the plant will provide “a thousand jobs during construction and hundreds of good longterm positions.” Trudeau described the investment as “big news,” adding that “Canada isn’t just going to be a global player in electric vehicles, with this and other announcements we made, we demonstrate that we get to be global leaders.” The MOU finalizes the support application of the project under the federal government’s Strategic Innovation Fund, and follows a recently signed agreement with Loyalist Township to secure a 1.4-sq.-km plot of land. Canada has upped its efforts to develop a battery eco-system to capitalize on rising demand for electric vehicles and further its efforts to decarbonize. The latest federal budget allocated $3.8 billion for the government’s first-ever Critical Minerals Strategy. The funds, to be distributed over eight years, will help develop domestic capacity to develop electric vehicle components such as batteries and permanent magnets. In March, Canada announced that auto-maker Stellantis N.V. (NYSE: STLA) and LG Energy Solution would invest over $5 billion to build a large battery plant in Windsor, Ont. The plant is expected to have an annual production capacity of over 45 giga-

Higher copper prices needed to incentivize new production, says Stifel exec | Egizio Bianchini says undercapitalized sector ill equipped to meet looming supply gap COPPER

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“CANADA ISN’T JUST GOING TO BE A GLOBAL PLAYER IN ELECTRIC VEHICLES, WITH THIS AND OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS WE MADE, WE DEMONSTRATE THAT WE GET TO BE GLOBAL LEADERS.” PRIME MINISTER JUSTIN TRUDEAU

watt hours to produce lithium-ion battery cells.    The mineral-rich nation, however, still lags behind its competitors in China and the U.S. in the battery sector, experts say. Umicore CEO Mathias Midreich, pointed to Canada’s clean energy, its resource endowment and the availability of a highly skilled workforce as the reasons behind the company’s decision to build a plant in Ontario. Gigafactory ‘first of its kind’ “This plant gigafactory will be the first of its kind in North America… because it’s going the full way,” he said. “It’s not only doing the end product, which is the cath-

ode material, it’s integrated… from mine to battery including all the upscale steps.” Midreich noted that the company plans to include refining and recycling in the later steps and said the plant will be the “missing link” between Canada’s natural resources sector and the electric mobility value chain. Ontario’s trade ministry told The Northern Miner that it would be supporting Umicore but would not disclose its funding amount to ensure its “negotiating position is protected for future investments we compete for.” “Right now, a number of companies are looking to Ontario to set up shop for their next major investment. Our ministry continues to work with these companies as they explore everything that our province has to offer,” a spokesperson from the Ministry of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade said. Umicore currently serves its battery materials customers in Europe through its cathode precursor and cobalt refining plant in Kokkola, Finland, and its battery materials plant in Nysa, Poland. In Asia, Umicore runs plants in Jiangmen, China, and Cheonan, South Korea. Trudeau noted that Canada’s investment in the battery sector would help improve the lives of Canadians and “make sure that our economy moves forward in a way that is less dependent on fossil fuels.” TNM

GOLD M&A UPDATE / 6

BY HENRY LAZENBY

he current and consensus forecast copper price levels are insufficient to incentivize the new supply that will be needed as the world moves to a fully electrified economy, a senior Stifel GMB analyst tells The Northern Miner. According to Egizio Bianchini, vice-chairman and Stifel’s head of metals and mining investment banking, the copper industry’s average price and company valuation multiples both need to increase significantly for the industry to even “attempt to deliver an aggressive supply response to expected demand,” he said in an interview. “The global copper industry is undersized and undercapitalized to deliver a strong supply response to what is expected to be a firm demand profile,” Bianchini said. According to the Stifel executive, notwithstanding the high margins the sector is currently enjoying, the copper price remains well below incentive pricing when considering the risk factors associated with developing, financing and building a mine in the current environment. Among the factors increasingly stifling mine development are unpredictable and additional environmental regulations, ESG-related considerations, a deteriorating geopolitical environment, seemingly high incentives for governments to increase their portion of the ‘financial pie’ (also known as resource nationalism), dramatically increasing inflation for goods and services, and the expanding timeframes for executing mine development and construction. Despite those headwinds, the copper price appears robust compared to trailing prices. At face value, forward-looking copper pricing expectations appear strong enough to entice significant new production to come on stream. However, it’s not that simple, explains Bianchini.While the established global copper produc-

ers are generating margins that historically would have resulted in the addition of substantial new supply, Bianchini says there’s a 12-million-tonne-per-year copper supply gap emerging from 2025 onwards. “Nothing is coming down to supply pipeline even nearly to cover the missing metal,” he says “The bottom line is that from our perspective, the copper producers versus copper end-users remain undersized and undercapitalized. The top seven public copper producers combined fail to reach a market capitalization of a single top technology company by a long shot,” he said. What does it all boil down to? The prospect of much higher copper prices down the line. See STIFEL / 2

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