boo
A unit of EchoPro, together with Ford and SK On are putting C$1.2b into building a plant to manufacture cathode active materials at Becancour, Quebec. The facility is supposed to begin operating in 2026,
LINK HERE. Arcadium Lithium is building a hydroxide plant at Becancour and even Lithium Universe is talking about building a carbonate plant there. While I understand that Ontario is the current centre of the Canadian car manufacturing sector clearly a sizeable cluster of new energy industries is also forming at Becancour. The north American market is big enough to justify numerous industry clusters so there is every reason for Becancour's cluster to just keep getting bigger and bigger. And Becancour is where Chris Evans has said that Adina rock is likely headed to.
I cannot remember if CE explicitly said he has been talking to EchoPro but I have little doubt he has: EchoPro is already committed to Quebec, and CE and a sidekick went in June (or was it May??) to Korea to talk to potential collaborators. I recall Latin Resources saying that when they went out to the market looking for offtakers they got 30 bites. Both CE and Ken Brinsden, from Patriot, are saying they are inundated with "strategics" wanting to do deals with lithium miners. So, yeah, offtakers and strategics are as keen as so I'm pretty confident CE has had numerous conversations with EchoPro. My own view is that once the physical link between Adina and Becancour has been materially derisked then one or another of the Koreans will jump at making their interest in Adina more tangible (note that Arcadium has said they are hunting for partners for their Galaxy spodumene operation in Quebec but other than that there are not many alternatives to Adina coming onstream in the next half decade).
As an aside, Ford is already the third biggest EV manufacturer in the US and the second biggest hybrid manufacturer and their Becancour facility will produce enough material for over 200,000 EVs a year. That's a lot of batteries in need of lithium. Interestingly the Ford boss thinks that light trucks will be the segment that does it for EVs in the States, in large part because EV trucks will be seen as energy back-up instead of generators (camping, blackouts, worksites etc).
(20min delay)