The Imerys group announces the operation by 2027 of a lithium mine in the Allier to manufacture batteries

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The group estimates that this site would make it possible to exploit lithium, an essential component of electric car batteries, for at least 25 years.

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It will be “one of the greatest” lithium mining projects in Europe. The Industrial Minerals Group Imerys has announced, Monday, October 24, the start of mining by 2027 of a lithium deposit in the Allier. Lithium is one of the essential components of batteries for electric cars.

The planned investment amounts to one billion euros to exploit for at least 25 years a deposit whose “concentrations and quantities” were judged “very attractive” after 18 months of underground drilling and studies, Imerys said in a statement. The deposit “should provide a sustainable and competitive domestic source of supply for French and European car manufacturers”said Alessandro Dazza, CEO of Imerys.

Since 1850, the Beauvoir site in the Allier has housed a quarry producing some 30,000 tonnes of kaolin each year, used in the manufacture of porcelain and tiles. Since the 1960s, the Bureau of Geological and Mining Research has identified the presence of lithium in the subsoil. Imerys, which bought the site in 2005, had so far remained extremely cautious about the possibility of exploiting it.

“According to the first estimates, the project would make it possible to reach a production of 34,000 tons of lithium hydroxide per year”says Imerys. Once “fully operational”, the site could “equip the equivalent of 700,000 electric vehicles with lithium-ion batteries”, adds the group. He promises eventually “1 000 direct and indirect jobs in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region”.

Lithium has been identified as a resource “critical” by the European Commission in 2020. The European Union, which has set itself the objective of abandoning the thermal car in 2035 in order to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, is sorely lacking in raw materials such as lithium, whose China has a virtual monopoly.


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