EV battery costs set to rise in 2022 as lithium price extends gains

Plug-in-vehicle market in China surges to a record 1.8% of total passenger vehicle sales.

BluMetric Environmental will provide its services to an unnamed major global company

Great Wall will be involved in what seems to be the first direct investment in a lithium supplier by an automaker.

Mapping of the area has shown presence of pegmatite outcrops over a strike length of 340m, up to 100m wide, with surrounding areas masked by glacial cover.

Albemarle said it could invest $1-billion in Chile over the next 5 years if request to the government to let it extract 125,000 tonnes per year is approved.

Arnoud Balhuizen, head of marketing at BHP, said the impact of the looming electric vehicle boom for raw materials producers would be felt first in the metals markets and only later in oil.

Rumours point at US chemical company Albenarle Corporation as the first potential buyer for PotashCorp interest in SQM, worth about $4.5 billion.

The specialty chemicals company said the overall market "could be (worth) more than $30 billion (in) sales when battery electric vehicle penetration increases to around 10 percent.

Move would seek to secure approval for its friendly merger with smaller rival Agrium, creating the world’s largest potash miner worth about $36 billion.