The success of initiatives like Savannah Assets’ in Portugal is seen as a key check of Europe’s capability to cut back its dependence on imports from China and different nations of lithium and different supplies important to the inexperienced transition.
“The basics are stronger than ever. The market will very seemingly come again into deficits (of provide) from 2027 onwards and that truly suits very properly with what we’re doing and with our timeline,” he informed business analysts.
Savannah expects to deliver the Barroso undertaking onstream “as early as potential in 2027”, he added.
Acknowledging that the interval of depressed costs was lasting “barely longer than we’d count on”, Proenca anticipated world lithium demand to develop by 2.6 instances within the subsequent seven years “with an acceleration from 2027, which might be very tough to fulfill by provide.”
His confidence in a restoration echoes that of Jakob Stausholm, CEO of Rio Tinto, which stated on Wednesday it could purchase US-based Arcadium Lithium for $6.7 billion in a deal that will catapult it to turn out to be the world’s third largest miner of the steel.
On issues about demand for EVs, Proenca stated the EV market was nonetheless rising at a robust tempo.
Final month, Savannah postponed the deliberate manufacturing begin by a yr to 2027, citing a change of presidency in Portugal.
The brand new centre-right authorities took over in April after the collapse of the earlier Socialist administration, partially attributable to a scandal over alleged illegalities in its administration of a number of funding initiatives, together with lithium.
The corporate needs to construct 4 open-pit mines within the northern Barroso area to extract sufficient lithium annually for about half one million EV batteries.
The undertaking has confronted robust opposition from native residents and environmentalists and Proenca stated not less than one group of land holders was nonetheless against it, however that ought to not impede the undertaking.
(By Sergio Goncalves; Enhancing by Andrei Khalip and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)