TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – Canadian mining technology firm Stria Lithium on Wednesday reported that it had received a funding commitment of up to $137 700 from the Canadian federal government to support the company’s work to develop novel lithium processing technologies aimed at producing low-cost, high-purity lithium products in an environmentally sustainable way.
Based in Ottawa, Ontario, Stria is advancing proprietary spodumene-to-lithium concentrate processing technologies capable of producing a low-cost, high-grade lithium-metal, lithium-carbonate and lithium-hydroxide products.
Stria had last month reported that it had completed a dense-media separation (DMS) study with SGS Canada, which had demonstrated the mineralogical quality and viability to purify spodumene mineralisation from its Pontax lithium project, in northern Quebec.
Ore from the project would be used to feed Stria's pilot plant in Kingston, Ontario, scheduled for start-up early next year.
The funds would be disbursed through the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Programme (NRC-IRAP).
“The federal government's commitment of financial support bodes well for us in meeting our planned future production milestones, beginning with our pilot plant in Kingston. We are extremely grateful for NRC-IRAP's business and technical advisory services, along with financial support, at this time in our process development,” Stria president and COO Julien Davy said, adding that battery manufacturers were looking to the resource sector to find innovative solutions to lower production costs.
"We believe our technologies hold the prospect of resolving not only cost and purity issues but also an industry imperative to do so on an environmentally sustainable basis,” he expressed.
Stria's aim was to licence its potential technologies to electric vehicle and large-scale industrial energy-storage battery manufacturers.
"Being able to 'walk the talk,' environmentally speaking, is critical to our future success in the lithium industry,” Davy noted.
Battery-grade lithium hydroxide demand had been estimated to grow by 30% a year from 2012 to 2020 – driven by the electric vehicle industry, electric storage and the increase in total demand from all applications.
CHILE LOAN
Separately, Canada's trade finance agency Export Development Canada (EDC) on Wednesday announced that it had paid Chile's State-owned copper production company, Corporación Nacional del Cobre de Chile (Codelco) C$300-million in financing.
The loan was signed in June.
The loan would be used to support Codelco's multibillion-dollar growth plan over the next four years, which would be achieved mostly through expansion projects at various mines.
“EDC has identified Chile as a market that holds tremendous promise and potential for growth, and we are looking to finance companies, like Codelco, that are making an impact in that market," said EDC regional VP in South America Jean Cardyn.
Codelco is the largest copper producer in the world and one of the largest companies in Chile, producing about 11% of the world's copper.
"This financing is an example of how EDC can help Chilean companies grow their business, where there is Canadian supply or the potential to introduce Canadian supply," Cardyn noted.
The EDC explained that it had the capital and experience necessary to undertake transactions of any size in support of deals involving Canadian supply or services, and was conducting yearly business volumes nearing C$1-billion.
The latest disbursement reflected a decade-long financing relationship between EDC and Codelco, and had resulted in EDC becoming a strategic financing partner for the Chilean company. Throughout the relationship, EDC had also connected Codelco with a number of Canadian companies that had supplied it with mining equipment, technology and services.