Imerys announces plans to mine lithium in France

The French mining group Imerys wants to become one of the leading suppliers of lithium in Europe through a new project. Specifically, this involves a mine at the Beauvoir site in the French department of Allier, where around 34,000 tonnes of lithium could be mined annually from 2028.
 

Imerys is currently still involved in technical studies with regard to the site in the French Massif Central. The company emphasises that the “Emili” project could become one of the largest lithium mining projects in the European union. When fully operational, the raw material should be enough to equip 700,000 electric vehicles with lithium-ion batteries annually.
 

Ten lithium mining projects are currently considered promising in the EU. The French Emili project would rank second after Rio Tinto’s ‘Jadar’ project in Serbia, according to a report in the French newspaper Sud-Ouest. This is behind the Upper Rhine Graben project of the German-Australian lithium producer Vulcan Energy Resources.
 

According to Imerys, kaolin has been extracted for ceramic production at the Beauvoir site since the late 19th century. As early as the 1960s, the Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières (BRGM) had also identified lithium deposits in the subsoil. But Imerys – a specialist in ceramic products and operator of the existing mine site – claims not to have known about its content until recently. According to the current state of studies, the concentration is said to be 0.9 to 1 per cent – that means you have to mine almost 100 tonnes of rock to get one tonne of lithium.

In “Sud-Ouest”, Alessandro Dazza, CEO of Imerys, is quoted as saying that the deposit is estimated at about one million tonnes of lithium oxide, which is “much more than the BRGM had originally assumed”. At the time, the state institute assumed 320,000 tonnes. In the official communication, Imerys speaks of a mining span of at least 25 years. But this is a conservative estimate. “We will continue the studies to see if we can extend the operation to 30 or 35 years,” Dazza said, according to the newspaper.
 

The French government supports the project: “This project, which is exemplary in terms of environment and climate, will drastically reduce our need for lithium imports,” French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire is quoted as saying in the paper.