Livista Energy eyes Australian lithium producers to secure Europe’s EV battery supplies

“We have to make ourselves competitive to help empower a successful energy transition.”

The Albanese government has flagged it will continue the work of the Coalition government’s efforts to boost Australia’s critical minerals sector and actively boost trade routes with the Europe Union and the UK in the race to a decarbonised economy.

Liontown Resources and Pilbara Minerals last month announced they would spend more than $800 million to expand lithium production as both seek to capitalise on the global push to decarbonise and accelerate the uptake of electric vehicles.

Livista, which recently appointed former TotalEnergies executive Jean-Marc Ichbia as its chief operating officer, expects to have completed site searches towards the end of 2022.

The company was among a group of 21 projects that received nearly £45 million ($79 million) of support from the British government-backed Advanced Propulsion Centre in its latest funding round.

The rapid increase in EV sales during the pandemic has tested the resilience of battery supply chains, and Russia’s war in Ukraine has further exacerbated the challenge.

The Internation Energy Agency warned policymakers, industry executives and investors in May that they needed to be “highly vigilant” and resourceful to reduce the risks of supply disruptions and ensure sustainable supplies of critical minerals.

In May 2022, lithium prices were more than seven times higher than at the start of 2021.

Livista wants to build a plant with an initial capacity of 30,000 tonnes a year, ramping up to 60,000 tonnes as demand for EVs increases. It is scoping sites such as Blythe, Northumberland, where Britishvolt, another start-up company, has started work on a £3.8 billion battery “gigafactory” to supply the UK car industry.

Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, a leading industry price reporting agency and consultancy, forecasts 117,000 tonnes of lithium demand for batteries in Europe this year, rising to 250,000 tonnes in 2025 and 600,000 tonnes by 2030.

Both the UK government and the EU have announced a ban on sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles from 2030, to hit international climate targets and reach net-zero by 2050.

The Faraday Institution recently forecast demand for 10 gigafactories – which produced batteries for on a gigantic scale – in the UK by 2040, producing 20 GWh per year of batteries equating to 100GWh. It believes that the combined electric vehicle automotive and battery ecosystem could be worth £22 billion by 2030 and £27 billion by 2040.

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