TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – TSX-quoted Canada Lithium has resumed commissioning of its process plant near Val d’Or, Quebec, following a three-week maintenance and upgrade programme that started at the end of August.

The company started reheating the kiln on Saturday and the crushing and grinding sections on Sunday.

Canada Lithium improved the hydrometallurgical plant, including installing acid-cleaning and bicarbonate recovery units and upgrades to the pumping capacity.

The company reported on Monday that it would sequentially phase in the hydrometallurgical circuits of the plant over the coming week as spodumene concentrate production started.

The Val d’Or operation will produce about 20 000 t/y of battery-grade lithium carbonate. Canada Lithium has a five-year offtake agreement for at least 12 000 t/y with China’s Tewoo-ERDC and a offtake deal for up to 5 000 t/y with Japan’s Marubeni Corp.

Meanwhile, the group said it was “encouraged” by the strength of the supply/demand factors in the lithium carbonate market and continuing signs that electric vehicle (EV) and hybrid vehicles, which use lithium-ion batteries, were gaining acceptance in global markets.

For example, over the past week there have been a number of positive EV announcements in the automotive industry. German carmaker Volkswagen (VW) outlined plans to offer as many as 40 electric or hybrid vehicles, with the first 14 models with alternative drive available by next year. VW publicly vowed to make its brand the top automaker in electric mobility by 2018.

US-based Tesla revealed that its first European supercharging stations are already operational and that a pan-European network is set to be complete by the end of 2014. Tesla claimed that by the end of next year, all of Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Austria, Denmark and Luxembourg will live within 320 km of a supercharger station, which is well within the car's driving range, enabling Tesla drivers to recharge for free.