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1) Albermale Corp said that it has chosen Chester County, South Carolina as the location for its $1.3 billion lithium processing plant as it looks to be the leader in the rapidly growing electric vehicle industry. The processing facility will double the company's processing capabilities as key customers, such as Tesla, are eager for more of the critical mineral. Albermarle is the largest lithium producer, based out of Charlotte, North Carolina, with major facilities in China, Chile and Australia. The company sees the US market as the next area of growth due to the push for clean technologies, electric vehicles and incentives offered by the recent passing of the US Inflation Reduction Act. The new facility is scheduled to process 50,000 tons of lithium each year which is roughly equivalent to making 2.4 electric cars annually. "This facility will help increase the production of U.S.-based lithium resources to fuel the clean energy revolution while bringing us closer to our customers as the supply chain is built out in North America," Albemarle Chief Executive Kent Masters said in a statement.
2) After last year's fiasco in the nickel market, the London Metal Exchange (LME) has finally resumed Asian-hours trading today, a step towards returning to some normalcy. It's been a year since LME has suspended trading and cancelled billions of dollars worth of deals in response to the short squeeze, where top producer Tsingshan Holding Group Co. was the center of attention, sending nickel prices 250% higher. More trouble came when LME has discovered a small amount of delivered nickel has stones mixed in it in its warehouses. After doing a global audit on their warehouses, LME detected no more issues with its stored metals.
3) BHP has made a deal with Chinese steelmaker HBIS Group Co to trial a pilet demonstrations of carbon capture and utilization technologies at its steel operations in China. HBIS will develop and test technologies that can in integrated into steel production to reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide. “Our multi-faceted partnership with HBIS will now include pilot testing of novel carbon capture technology at their operating sites in Hebei, and builds on the separate carbon capture trial with ArcelorMittal, Mitsubishi Heavy Industry and Mitsubishi Development, announced in October 2022,” BHP CCO Vandita Pant said.