The world leader in mineral specialties for the Imerys industry announced, on Monday, the launch of an important operating project in Echassières, in the Allier.
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World leader in mineral specialties for industry, the IMERYS group announced, on Monday, October 24, the launch of an important lithium operating project in Echassières (Allier). Since the end of the nineteenth e century, this open -air mine, known as “de Beauvoir”, named after the former operating society, and located on the edge of the Colettes forest, on the edge of Departments of Allier and Puy-de-Dôme, produces 25,000 to 30,000 tonnes of kaolin each year, intended for ceramics.
Studies and cores provide for the in -depth presence of high concentrations of lithium hydroxide, in total one million tonnes of a content between 0.9 % and 1 % oxide, confirming estimates of the Research Office geological and mining (BRGM). This deposit will allow the extraction of 34,000 tonnes for twenty-five years. IMERYS will thus become a leading supplier from the European market, with equipment capacity of 700,000 vehicles in lithium-ion battery per year.
In addition to the studies already carried out for 30 million euros, the project will require a minimum investment of one billion euros, on the basis of a cost of production of lithium estimated between 7 euros and 9 euros per kilo. IMERYS the judge “very competitive, in particular on the European market, and which can guarantee a return on investment in accordance with the guidelines of the group”.
“Decarbonation and sovereignty”
Production will start in early 2028, following the evaluation phases and industrial experiments, to quickly lead to the creation of 1,000 direct or indirect jobs. In this granitic area recognized for its richness in rare minerals, work on the hard rock will first focus on a depth between 75 meters and 35 meters, to extract lithium in the framework of underground processes.
Production will be transported by an underground pipe of ten kilometers to the nearest station, then taking the direction of a refinement unit “located in the region”, according to Imerys, a short circuit put into Before by the promoters of the project, who have been insisting on integration into the Beauvoir mine campaign for over a century.
“It is a question of responding to the challenge of the energy transition by offering a lasting solution of decarbonation while increasing the sovereignty of France and Europe by reducing imports”, underlines Alessandro Dazza, Director General of ‘IMERYS. Lithium demand is indeed experiencing exponential growth. In 2020, the European Commission qualified the situation as “criticism”.
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