Lithium, 'the oil of the future', begins to be explored in Brazil
The recent discoveries of lithium in Brazil make the country one of the biggest producers of the mineral of the world, the basic raw material for the manufacture of electric batteries.
According to data released by the National Mining Agency (ANM), 117 applications were received by December to investigate the presence of lithium, more than three times more than in 2017 and four times more than in 2016.
The extraction of lithium generated a great expectation in the Vale do Jequitinhonha, in the State of Minas Gerais, one of the poorest regions of the country, but with great potential for open areas.
In the Araçuaí region, about 600 kilometers from Belo Horizonte, 46 new requests for lithium mining in the last two years were registered, thanks to the initial discoveries made by the mining company Sigma and a work by the state-owned Mineral Resources Research Company ( CPRM), which found 45 rocky bodies with lithium minerals.
In 2018, there was also an increase in the lithium search in the Northeast, mainly in the States of Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba, Pernambuco and Bahia.
Called "oil of the future" because of the potential for replacement of the combustion engine, lithium has gained great value in the international market in the last years and months, which caused its price to rise rapidly.
This coincides with plans by several countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the transport sector, which has generated major competition around the globe to find oil substitutes, which may be in electric batteries and more specifically in lithium .
Brazil currently has a small lithium production, through a project of the Brazilian Company of Lithium (CBL), located in Araçuaí and destined for basic consumption in the domestic market, such as lubricants and ceramics, although several recent investments have begun to change the scenario .
In May, the company AMG Mineração opened a factory in Nazaré, also in Minas Gerais and about 240 kilometers from Belo Horizonte, with an investment of R $ 450 million reais to extract the lithium from used batteries that had not recently had market value.
Currently, the unit operates at 60% of its capacity, of 90,000 tons per year of spodumene, one of the minerals in which lithium is found. Considering that there is 6% of lithium in this volume of material, it would be 4,500 tons of lithium contained, the measure used internationally to classify production, equivalent to nine times more than all Brazilian production in 2017.
Last year, Brazil produced 43,000 tonnes of contained lithium, representing less than 0.1% of a global market dominated by Australia and Chile, which together account for 76% of global production, and Argentina, with 13% of total worldwide.
Currently, Sigma mining prepares the largest lithium production project in Brazil, with a capacity of 240 thousand tons of spodumene annually, equivalent to about 14,400 tons of lithium.
"We have availability of raw materials and market, which is one of the largest in the world." We have the beginning and the end. president of Sigma, Itamar Resende, in statements to the UOL portal.
AMB, in turn, has already signed an agreement with the Korean company Ecopro to study the feasibility of a chemical plant for the production of lithium sulphate, an even more important step in the battery production chain.
In any case, Brazil must be ahead of the largest lithium producers, the oil of the future, in the coming years.
Source: Valor29 / 12/2018 at 01h44 1 Lithium, 'the oil of the future', begins to be explored in Brazil
Volgens dit artikel is de OEE 60 % van fase 1 lithium. eind afgelopen jaar.