It has been a 'totally foreign concept' in Canadian mining to process the minerals here. Now, deals are already being made to export lithium to other countries for processing.
Canada’s resources are on the radar of international automakers and battery cell manufacturers that are lining up materials to power the transition to electric vehicles.
George Pirie, Ontario’s minister of mines, acknowledged that the province’s mining sector has a history of favouring raw-material exports over processing. Under the province’s legacy mining model, they would then have been exported for further processing overseas before reaching industry. Avalon, however, is developing a refinery 550 kilometres east in Thunder Bay, Ont., to bring the concentrates up to battery-grade. The company is currently working to acquire an industrial property in the city to build the refinery, which would also serve other local mining companies developing other deposits nearby, Bubar said.
“It’s there to try to create more added value to the mineral resource,” said Chris Hodgson, president of the Ontario Mining Association.Permission to export unprocessed material is granted at the discretion of the provincial Cabinet, Hodgson said. Exemptions are not unheard of, but not common, he said, with companies typically needing to demonstrate why they are unable to refine within Canada.
No such processing rules exist at the federal level, said Anthony Ertl, a Natural Resources Canada spokesman. Ottawa does emphasize processing through financial backing, however. Since then, Mercedes-Benz has signed a lithium supply deal for its European operations with Vancouver-based Rock Tech Lithium Inc. The company is developing a mine in northern Ontario, but its near-term plans are to refine the lithium in Germany.
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