One of the bright spots within the mining sector in the last 12 months has been the battery materials space. Investors are rightly anticipating that there is going to be a tremendous demand for some of the raw materials that will go into the batteries powering the next generation of road vehicles. This will start to shift the emphasis from fossil fuels to a new generation of producers.
Below are five interesting battery materials stocks, some of which we have been following for over three years, and others which have cropped up on our radar recently.
#1. Euro Manganese Inc [ASX:EMN]
Euro Manganese is listed in Australia and Canada. It is not a miner per se, but it in the process of building a plant which can process the tailings from historic mine workings in the Czech Republic. These tailings contain high purity manganese which will be vital to the developing battery manufacturing sector in Europe. The company’s core project is located at Chvaletice, which places it firmly in the middle of the European industrial heartland. Its manganese product has just been independently evaluated as having the 99.99% purity required by the sector, which is great news.
#2. Kodal Minerals LON:KOD
Kodal is on track to be the first commercial lithium producer in Mali, thanks to the company’s flagship project at Bougouni. It is expecting to start producing lithium in 2024. The mine is going to be producing spodumene concentrate suitable for use in electric vehicle batteries. The company has secured a $117m financing package from Fosun International (financing expected to be completed at the end of April 2023). Kodal Minerals says it will accelerate the development of its Bougouni resource via a faster build and lower capital cost DMS processing plant option, which it sees as the quickest route to the production of spodumene.
#3. Nano One TSX:NANO
Located in Canada, Nano One owns a proprietary process which enables it to make the cathode materials used in lithium ion batteries at a much lower cost than previously. Its technology can be applied in the batteries used in electric vehicles, energy storage and consumer electronics. Nano One continues to attract funding from the Canadian government and last year it acquired a factory facility in Quebec from Johnson Matthey as it seeks to scale up its operations. We should also mention that it now has a strategic partnership in place with Rio Tinto to collaborate on battery metals as inputs (Rio also invested $10m into Nano One).
#4. Jangada Mines LON:JAN
Based in Brazil, Jangada Mines is advancing a vanadium titanomagnetite (VTM) project which it fully owns. It has existing vanadium pentoxide and titanium dioxide resources which are highly sought after in the energy transition space. Apart from progressing its vanadium resource at Pitombeiras it is also invested in a British metallurgical processing company called Fodere Titanium, which has new commercial processes for extractive metallurgy, including for titanium dioxide and vanadium pentoxide from low grade ores and waste stockpiles. Pitombeiras has an NI 43-101 compliant Mineral Resource Estimate of 8.26 Mt with measured and indicated resources of 5.10 Mt at 0.46% V205 and 9.04% TiO2.
#5. FPX Nickel TSXV:FPX
FPX Nickel is prospecting in the Decar Nickel District in Canada’s British Columbia. Its main focus is on the Baptiste Deposit, which is a greenfield discovery of nickel mineralisation in the form of a naturally occurring nickel-iron alloy called awaruite. This is projected to be among one of the world’s 10 largest nickel mines by annual output, with an estimated 35 year mine life. It boasts a high grade nickel product with low impurities and the lowest carbon intensity in the nickel industry. It is also perfectly aligned as an asset within Canada’s critical minerals strategy and strategically located to easily supply the demands of the US battery sector as well.
