Lithium will be mastered beyond the Arctic Circle

Rosatom and Norilsk Nickel received a license to develop the country’s largest Kolmozerskoye lithium deposit in the Murmansk region for 1.56 billion rubles. The partners plan to mine 2 million tons of ore and produce 45 thousand tons of carbonate and lithium hydroxide per year. Production and processing, according to Kommersant’s sources, will not begin until 2028 due to difficult climatic conditions and lack of infrastructure. After production reaches full capacity in 2030, Russia will be able to take up to 10% of the global lithium market, analysts say.

Atomredmetzoloto (ARMZ, a mining division of Rosatom) and Norilsk Nickel received a license to develop a lithium ore deposit in the Murmansk Region. The development of the Kolmozersky site will be carried out by the Polar Lithium joint venture, which paid 1.56 billion rubles for the license. The term of use of the site is 20 years.

The project to develop the Kolmozerskoye deposit involves the processing of 1.96 million tons of ore per year and the production of 45 thousand tons of carbonate and lithium hydroxide per year. Additional exploration will begin “in the coming months.” Completion of design and exploration work is planned “in a few years, and reaching the design capacity by 2030,” the companies said in a statement. Several sources of Kommersant believe that, given the climatic conditions of the Murmansk region and the unpreparedness of the infrastructure, production at the field may not begin until 2028.

The project involves the construction of a quarry and a processing plant near the deposit, sources told Kommersant last spring. Ore processing is possible using Norilsk Nickel’s facilities in Monchegorsk. The companies are also considering the possibility of producing precursors at the facilities of Norilsk Nickel, and then directly lithium-ion cells at the Rosatom gigafactory in the Kaliningrad region. The partners do not disclose the amount of investments, but, as reported by “Kommersant”the amount of investments may exceed 50 billion rubles.

“By complementing each other’s capabilities and assets, the interaction between Rosatom and Norilsk Nickel will make it possible to accelerate the construction of a full-cycle industry: from ore to energy storage,” said Igor Demidov, CEO of Polar Lithium. Rosatom’s gigafactory in the Kaliningrad region with a capacity of 4 GWh per year (approximately 50 thousand electric vehicles) should start operating in the fall of 2025, which means that the company will have to continue importing raw materials for the manufacture of cells in the first years. According to Dmitry Babansky from SBS Consulting, the needs of the Rosatom gigafactory will require about 360 tons of lithium carbonate per year.

Russia has problems with the supply of lithium carbonate. In the spring of 2022, the Ministry of Industry and Trade said that Chile, Argentina and China suspended exports to the Russian Federation after the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine. Deliveries continued only Bolivia. Last spring, the first deputy head of Rosatom, Kirill Komarov, noted that Russia should “actively buy abroad” deposits with cheap lithium. The state corporation, in particular, reported on participation in a tender for a field in Bolivia.

Now the prices for lithium carbonate have adjusted to $70.87 thousand per 1 ton against $90 thousand in the first decade of 2022, Sergey Grishunin, managing director of the NRA rating service, notes. Hydroxide at the same time fell in price by about 20%, to $76.75 thousand per 1 ton. Estimated production volumes at the field in theory will allow Russia to take up to 10% of the global lithium market by 2030, the analyst says.

Polina Smertina