The merger will create the fifth-largest lithium company. The only other lithium companies that would have a larger market capitalization than the merged Orocobre and Galaxy are Ganfeng Lithium, Albemarle, SQM and Tianqi. The next biggest companies are Pilbara Minerals, Livent and Lithium Americas.
Orocobre said last week that production of lithium carbonate from its Olaroz lithium operations in Argentina was sold out until the end of June 2022. Galaxy Resources raised resource estimates for its Sal de Vida project, providing a detailed plan to produce lithium carbonate at the asset.
The deal, expected to be complete in mid-August this year, sets the head office in Buenos Aires, Argentina, while the corporate headquarters will be in Australia.
Mistango River Resources (CSE: MIS) has entered a partnership with Kirkland Lake Gold wherein Kirkland Lake Gold will acquire a 9.9% interest. Additionally, Mistango has granted Kirkland Lake the option to acquire up to a 75% interest in its Kirkland West and Omega projects in exchange for spending $60 million.
On the Cadillac-Larder Lake Break, Mistango’s flagship Omega property includes the historic mine of the same name. Indicated resources include 219,808 oz. of gold and inferred resources including 365,400 oz. of gold.
The Kirkland West property lies next to the Macassa gold mine.
A Chilean court ordered BHP's (ASX: BHP) Cerro Colorado copper mine to stop taking water from a local water source and regulate nearby waste deposits following complaints from an indigenous community.
The ruling followed another order by the Supreme Court in January which upheld local indigenous communities’ complaint that Cerro Colorado's operations were overdrawing water and impacting local wetlands.
This ruling from the Court of Appeal of the northern Chilean city of Iquique ordered BHP to fill in two wells it had dug in the Quipisca-Parca stream and to stop all dumping of waste and ballast material next to it, something the community said was causing run-off and landslides.
BHP told Reuters that Thursday's court order would not impact operations.
Goldman Sachs in a new report says meeting the Paris climate goals and transitioning the world away from fossil fuels towards electrification will explode copper demand.
The investment bank forecasts a supply gap of 8.2 million tonnes of copper by 2030, the “highest on record” and “twice the size of the gap that triggered the bull market in copper in the early 2000s.”
The report estimates that by 2030, copper demand from electrification will grow ~600% to 5.4 million tonnes in their lowest case and 900% to 8.7Mt in the case of hyper-adoption of green technologies.
Goldman forecasts US$15,000 per tonne of copper by 2025. It estimates prices for the metal could average US$9,675 per tonne this year; US$11,875 per tonne in 2022, US$12,000 per tonne in 2023, and US$14,000 per tonne in 2024.
The report outlines three factors driving copper demand: electric vehicles, solar power and wind power. The bank estimates that 5.1 million EVs likely will be sold in 2021, rising to 31.51 million EVs in the year 2030.