LPD News December, page-24

https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/w...tugal-targets-first-lithium-licensing-tender/

Portugal expects to launch a tender for lithium exploration licences in 2019, the new secretary of state for energy says, confirming the general outlines of a plan devised under his predecessor, although with a slight delay.

In September, Joao Galamba’s predecessor Jorge Seguro Sanches said he wanted to launch the tender before the end of 2018 as part of a plan to make Portugal Europe’s top supplier of the metal for electric car batteries and meet an expected surge in global demand for lithium.

Galamba, who took over less than two months ago after a wider government reshuffle, said the government will look at commitments to invest in a local lithium processing unit as part of the tender process.

So far there are no facilities in Europe to refine lithium to battery-grade purity, and no large-scale battery production for cars, and the EU is concerned that its car makers will be over-reliant on imports from China.