PIO is well positioned in North America with ILC ...Ganfeng and ...Telsla
Mavis Lake Ontario
North America
Tesla, the maker of high end electric cars, is a rule-breaker and innovator in many ways in the automobile industry. It is on a mission, for example, to radically reduce the time it takes to get tooling made for its vehicles, among many other innovative supply chain practices.
The company is adding another notch to its rules-breaking belt, with news this week that it expects to use only raw materials sourced from North America for its planned "Gigafactory," where the giant lithium-ion batteries that power its cars will be made.
The company believes it can source all the graphite, cobalt and other materials it needs without going outside the continent - but that plan takes a lot of faith, it turns out.
"It will enable us to establish a supply chain that is local and focused on minimizing environmental impact while significantly reducing battery cost,"Liz Jarvis-Shean, a company spokesperson, told Bloomberg this week.
There are a number of drivers for the Tesla sourcing move. Graphite pollution, for example, is rising as a global issue. China's government, for instance, the world's largest graphite producer, has begun to shutter mines producing graphite, a major ingredient in lithium-ion batteries, over local air quality concerns. That even as demand for the material is soaring.
And of course, there are widespread corporate concerns about avoiding the use of industrial minerals from global trouble spots in parts of Africa, worried about both consistency of supply and being tagged as using so-called "conflict minerals" from the region. While neither cobalt nor graphite are considered conflict minerals, much of it does come from related war-torn regions.
Tesla "is a high-profile company that is entering an age of supply chain transparency," said Simon Moores, an analyst at Industrial Minerals Data in London.
The company says it sources most of its graphite now from Japan and Europe, and that much of that is synthetic, or manufactured rather than mined. In fact, Tesla says it prefers synthetic graphite over natural.
The announcement relative to North American-only sourcing is certainly not without risk. To pull it off, Tesla may need to turn to graphite mines in Canada that have yet to be built. The company may also require supplies of cobalt that exceed existing Canadian output and thus need to look at prospective suppliers in states such Minnesota and Idaho.
Whether in the end all this will save the company any money is not at all clear. Tesla says its plans will reduce "logistics waste" for many materials. Currently, graphite, cobalt and other commodities often travel thousands of miles from mines to processors and then on to manufacturers and consumers, miles that will be significantly reduced if Tesla can source what it requires from North America.
PIO An offtake strategy through ILC.
The Agreement provides ILC with the first stage of their North American strategy to join with Strategic Partners and to advance lithium opportunities with them that have no infrastructure constraints, consequently making potential mining projects less capital intensive.
Mr. Gary Schellenberg, CEO, International Lithium Corp. stated, “This is the first step of our new strategy developed for North America.
We see an escalating demand for lithium in North America, especially in the automotive sector with new sources being either many years away, or with logistic and metallurgical challenges. Our strategy for the Upper Canada region sees us advancing a multitude of smaller deposits that possess near perfect accessible infrastructure and that can supply a central lithium carbonate processing facility.
Identifying smaller high-grade deposits within close proximity can greatly enhance the economics of a processing facility as well as allowing these smaller deposits to be mined at a greatly reduced CAPEX.
We intend on bringing our strategy to reality through strategic partners, like Pioneer, that share our vision.”
My thoughts..
as far as i am aware through research..PIO have not had a partnership like this one with ILC and Ganfeng before...should be interesting to see how high they take it..they certainly seem to have the backing to do it..certainly Ganfeng has the finances and the processing patents / experience and the go to make things happen quickly..and i would think they would want to be the ones to supply Tesla northern sector asap ....they do if i recall have a 3 year supply contract with Tesla i posted that somewhere would have to hunt it down again or you can..
Wang Xiaoshen, MBA Director at ILC
Mr. Wang graduated in 1990 with University of North Technology in Beijing, and subsequently established himself in the lithium sector with China State-Owned Enterprises (SOE). Also graduated with an executive MBA from the China Europe International Business School in 2002. Mr. Wang possesses an in-depth understanding of the lithium industry and market through his lengthy experience in sales and marketing of lithium products in China and around the world. He was integral to the formation of Ganfeng Lithium and has been instrumental to its growth as the managing director since 2006. Mr. Wang is currently vice-chairman and executive vice-president of Ganfeng Lithium.
Jiangxi Ganfeng Lithium Co.,Ltd is a hi-tech enterprise which founded in 2000, covered science, industry and trade with the area of 300 Chinese acres, registered capital of 75,000,000 Yuan, 450 staff, 160 of them are engineers, technicians and administrators (80 of high-level and intermediate titles).
Currently the only partnership that i have found with TNR (who is partnered with) ILC for the northern sector projects and all the projects they have including brine in Nevada is PIO....if anyone else has found one then please tell us....PIO as far as i am aware hasn't been offered the brine ones as yet and might not ..only they know the answer to that question..
If any of you non investors in PIO think this is ramping then so be it ..because i don't...this is a business forum about PIO this is information regarding PIO ...see it how you like i certainly wont stop providing information and my personal thoughts about a company that myself and others are investing in..
more to come..
PIO Price at posting:
4.3¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
