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Diggers & Dealers 2023: Patriot Battery Metals’ Ken Brinsden calls end date for lithium spodumene


Patriot Battery Metals chairman Ken Brinsden expects lithium spodumene concentrate could disappear from the market in a decade and be replaced by higher-value, midstream product.
Mr Brinsden said he firmly believed in the strategy of Pilbara Minerals — his former employer — which has not ruled out switching all its production over to an intermediate lithium phosphate product if a $105 million demonstration plant validates the technology.
The product will contain three times more lithium than spodumene and allow waste material to be left at the mine site, offering significant transport and emissions savings.

Mr Brinsden told reporters on the sidelines of the Diggers & Dealers conference that it was a “quirk of history” that spodumene exists, noting the market had only developed because it was originally a by-product.

“It is an incredibly inefficient carrier of lithium — in fact it’s horrible,” he said.
“You don’t want to ship spodumene and I think the market is waking up to that. Pilbara is pioneering a path to a much improved product that will establish a global footprint well beyond spodumene, and I honestly believe that’s what’s going to happen.”

Mr Brinsden said the logic was “compelling” both on and environmental and economic basis.
He noted the intermediate product has a lower carbon footprint, minimises the waste in the destination market — allowing companies to bypass China and land their product in Europe or North America — and would generate significantly more revenue.

“I think (the intermediate product) is going to happen faster than people are giving it credit for. I don’t think spodumene is going to be in the market in about 10 years’ time,” Mr Brinsden said.
Patriot recently revealed a maiden resource of 109.2 million tonnes at its Corvette discovery in Canada’s James Bay district, attracting a 5 per cent equity stake from US giant Albemarle. It clocks in as the world’s eighth largest hard rock lithium resource.

Mr Brinsden said there was every chance there could be multiple chemical facilities hanging of Corvette in North America in Europe in the same way that WA’s Greenbushes mine operates

“There’s probably four or five chemical plants combination of here in Australia, but equally in China, and I think similar logic can prevail through the North Americas with Patriot’s Corvette project being an important part of that,” he told delegates.

Mr Brinsden also said talk of prolonged build times in Canada was “crap” and had been misrepresented. Patriot’s observations are that it takes 4½ years to develop a mine in Canada, which he said was comparable with WA.

The Patriot chairman and lithium veteran said there would have to be more support and incentives for carmakers in the North American and European supply chains to successfully compete with China, claiming the historic US Inflation Reduction Act was “just the beginning”.

Mr Brinsden said China’s dominance of the battery chemicals supply chain now also extended to electric vehicles, which are landing in Europe and North America “en masse”.

Companies like Ford, General Motors and Stellantis will not only have to build their businesses around future EV supply chains but cope with competition in the market today.

“I think that things like the IRA are really just the beginning. There is going to have to be a lot more incentive and support in the North American and European supply chain just so that the car makers survive — it’s going to be ultra-competitive,” he said.