Automotive News Canada - January 2022 - 16

16
* JANUARY 2022
BY REFINING
CANADA'S EV FUTURE
ADAPTING TO CHANGE AND SEIZING OPPORTUNITY
REDEFINING
This year, Electra Battery Materials plans
to begin producing battery-grade cobalt at its
refinery in the aptly named Ontario city of Cobalt.
SUPPLIED PHOTO
Mining company thinks it
has unearthed the missing
link in the EV supply chain
By DAVID KENNEDY
T ORONTO BUREAU CHIEF
ABOUT 500 KILOMETRES NORTH OF
Toronto, not far off the conifer-lined roadside
of Highway 11, a Canadian mining
company has begun construction on a
refinery complex that could underpin
North America's electric-vehicle supply
chain.
Late in 2022, Electra Battery Materials
Corp. plans to begin producing battery-grade
cobalt at
its refinery in Cobalt,
Ont. From there, the
roughly four-year-old
company has laid out
plans that would see
it expand its site into
what would potentially
be the continent's
only integrated battery-materials
park.
Electra President
Trent Mell knows
that the road map is
ambitious but said the
company is perfectly
positioned to fill a
major gap in North
America's battery
supply chain.
Frith: Canada
has the natural
resources
for a battery
supply chain
but lacks " that
end demand "
from battery
cell production
and component
manufacturing.
PHOTO: LINKEDIN
" People thought
we were dreamers, "
he said, referencing
early questions about
how the company would line up funding
and manage to wrest market share from
China, which refines about 80 per cent of
the globe's cobalt sulfate.
" And here we are. We're funded. We've
got great support. We're going to get ourselves
there. "
Contractors are now on-site in Cobalt,
moving earth to clear the way for new
buildings and fully recommission a refinery
built in the 1990s. The US $67 million
project - recently scaled up to be capable
of processing 6,500 tonnes of cobalt from
5,000 tonnes because of strong demand -
is fully financed.
The refinery will process a stream of
cobalt from the Democratic Republic of
the Congo, where a majority of the world's
supply is mined. Glencore will be among
the suppliers. Electra announced an agreement
with the mining giant in December
to produce low-carbon battery-grade cobalt
sulfate for the EV market. In the near
future, however, Electra aims to add feeds
from within North America.
Electra's wider plans for the battery
complex come with a considerably higher
price tag. Mell estimates that the next three
phases of work - a battery recycling plant,
a nickel sulfate plant and a battery-precursor
material plant - will cost about $500
million.
REBRAND AND REDEFINE
The scaled-up site marks a major shift
for Electra, which rebranded from First
Cobalt Corp. The company was founded
as a cobalt explorer, but its ownership of
North America's only permitted cobalt
refinery and demand for battery materials
from automakers and others in the supply
chain encouraged the company to think
bigger, Mell said.
If the company can finance the next
three phases of its plan, likely through a
partnership or joint venture with an established
battery player, it will cover each of
the early stages of battery material processing
and be capable of handing off
what's known as precursor cathode active
material (PCAM) to customers. PCAM
would then be converted into cathode
active material and incorporated into the
battery cells.
While Electra has something of a head
start, it will be a competitive market.
Canada has the natural resources
for an intricate battery supply chain
but runs into hurdles downstream, said
James Frith, an analyst who heads the
energy storage team at researchers
BloombergNEF.
" Having raw materials is one thing,
but to really attract the rest of the supply
chain, you want to have that end demand, "
Frith said. He pointed to cell production
and component manufacturing as two of
Electra's Northern Ontario site is about 500 kilometres from the auto manufacturing
hubs in the southern part of the province. SUPPLIED PHOTO
battery plant, though no announcements
have been made to date.
Maybe we haven't been as
successful as we'd hoped so far
on the EV, on the assembly side
of things. ... But we can own
the chemicals space because all
the minerals are here.
TRENT MELL
Electra Battery Materials Corp.
the missing links.
The Ontario government has actively
courted EV investments and has been promoting
itself as a destination for battery
manufacturers. The province recently said
it is in discussions with a dozen industry
players that are sizing up Ontario for a
'OWN THE CHEMICALS SPACE'
This is all the more reason to focus on
the chemicals space, said Electra's Mell.
" Maybe we haven't been as successful
as we had hoped so far on the EV, on the
assembly side of things, relative to the
southern U.S., " he said. " But we can own
the chemicals space because all the minerals
are here. "
Compared with other jurisdictions,
Mell said, Electra's tie-in to Ontario's
clean-power grid and its proximity to the
nickel belt around Sudbury, Ont., gives it
an edge.
" If you were to start from scratch, you
probably would want to put this on the
East or West Coast, right? " he said. " You
would want to be ocean-bound because
it's a global market. That's what people
have said to us, and I wouldn't have disagreed
until we started looking at nickel. "
Electra's site in Northern Ontario
about 500 kilometres from the auto manufacturing
hubs in the southern part of
the province and a few more hours from
those in the northern United States.
This shortened supply chain fits within
the automotive industry's lean-manufacturing
model, Frith said.
" People thought we were dreamers, " said Electra Battery Materials President Trent
Mell. " And here we are. We're funded. We've got great support. We're going to get
ourselves there. " SUPPLIED PHOTO
" If you can produce materials in
Canada, refine them in Canada, build
cells, then put them into vehicles in
Canada, " he said, " you have a very short
supply chain, you'll have a cleaner supply
chain, and that can be enhanced by relying
on the Canadian low grid emissions. "
Electra's push to locate different stages
of the PCAM process at one complex,
Mell said, takes a page from Harjavalta,
Finland, where the German chemical
company BASF is building an integrated
refining operation. Electra aims to entice
an established battery partner to co-locate
at its Ontario site, simplifying the supply
chain and cutting costs for both parties.
- ANC
Automotive News Canada - January 2022

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