One of the largest lithium mines in Europe will be operated in France by 2027

Published on: 24/10/2022 – 09:43 The French industrial minerals group Imerys announced on Monday the start of mining by 2027 of a lithium deposit in Allier, in central France . It will be “one of the biggest” in Europe, and will serve to accelerate the energy transition by supplying the electric car industry. One of the largest European mines of lithium, a white powder that intoxicates the electric battery industry and should allow cars to wean themselves off CO2-emitting oil, will see the light of day by 2027 in the Massif Central in France. The “Emili” project, announced on Monday 24 October by the French industrial minerals group Imerys, will help Europe to get rid of its almost complete dependence on China for the lithium needed for the batteries of electric cars, which are supposed to be the only new vehicles that can be sold in the European Union from 2035. It took 18 months of surveys and studies carried out by mining specialists in the basement of a kaolin quarry owned since 2005 by the group in Beauvoir in the Allier, in the center of the country, to confirm the economic interest of the mine. With the exploitation of this deposit, “we will help Europe to decarbonize”, declared Monday to the press Alessandro Dazza, say Director General of Imerys, who was to receive local elected officials on site. “This project, exemplary in environmental and climatic terms, will drastically reduce our lithium import needs”, welcomed the French Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, in the group’s press release. He adds that it will be supported by the French government.>> In Europe, the race for lithium, a major challenge in the energy transitionEquip the equivalent of 700,000 vehiclesOf the ten European lithium exploitation projects, that of Imerys is the second most important, since the abandonment of the Rio Tinto project in Serbia in January, and behind that of the start-up Vulcan in Germany, based on the exploitation of brines from the Rhine valley. The “concentrations and quantities” of lithium were considered “very attractive” in Beauvoir, which since 1850 has housed a quarry producing 30,000 tonnes of kaolin per year for porcelain or tiles. Since the 1960s, the Bureau of Geological and Mining Research (BRGM) had clearly identified the presence of lithium in this basement. But Imerys was unaware until recently of the content and therefore whether the site could be profitable. “We estimate the deposit around one million tons of lithium oxide”, assured Alessandro Dazza. That is “much more than BRGM thought” initially (320,000 tons). Enough to produce “34,000 tons of lithium hydroxide per year from 2028 for a period of at least 25 years”, and the equivalent of 700,000 electric vehicles in lithium-ion batteries” per year, according to Imerys. Which is far from negligible: the current global production of lithium carbonate or hydroxide, the two elements used in batteries, does not exceed 450,000 tonnes worldwide, according to Imerys. And by 2040, the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that it will be multiplied by 40. In Beauvoir, “there could be more than what we estimated, we will continue the studies to see if we could have 30 or 35 years of exploitation”, added Alessando Dazza. The concentration is of the order of 0.9 to 1%, that is to say that it is necessary to extract nearly 100 tons of rock to extract a ton of lithium. The group estimates its production costs “between 7 and 9 euros per kilo excluding initial investment, which would guarantee “an interesting return on investment”. And it promises in the long term 1,000 direct and indirect jobs in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, out of two sites: the underground mica extraction mine containing lithium, between 75 and 350 meters deep, and a mineral purification and lithium hydroxide processing plant, less than 100 kilometers from the mine. environmental criticism against this new mining project in the heart of France.Imerys announced that the mine would adopt an international standard being developed, “IRMA”, which aims to reduce toxic discharges and minimize water consumption. Mining will take place underground, which will minimize dust, and the rocks will be transported by pipeline and rail to avoid trucks between the mine and the industrial site. generated by the exploitation, the group estimates them at 8 kg of C02 per ton of lithium, against 16 to 20 kg in Australia and China, according to him. With AFP