Piedmont Lithium is an Australian mining company in the process of proving economic mineral recovery of

lithium Lithium (from el, λίθος, lithos, lit=stone) is a chemical element with the symbol Li and atomic number 3. It is a soft, silvery-white alkali metal. Under standard conditions, it is the least dense metal and the least dense solid ...

Gaston County, North Carolina Gaston County is a county in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 227,943. The county seat is Gastonia. Dallas served as the original county seat from 1846 until 1911. Gaston County is included in t ...

History

"The modern lithium-mining industry started in this

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and ...

region in the 1950s, when the metal was used to make components for nuclear bombs. One of the world’s biggest lithium miners by production, Albemarle Corp, is based in nearby

Charlotte Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most populo ...

. Nearly all of lbemarle's lithium as of March 2021 however, is extracted in Australia and Chile, which have large, accessible deposits of the metal"." , just one percent of global lithium

supply Supply may refer to: *The amount of a resource that is available **Supply (economics), the amount of a product which is available to customers **Materiel, the goods and equipment for a military unit to fulfill its mission *Supply, as in confidenc ...

is both mined and processed in the United States (), while is produced in Australia and Chile. Piedmont Lithium Ltd was founded as an Australian company in 2016. Cofounders included Australian financier Taso Arima and US geologist Lamont Leatherman, who raised several million dollars of

seed funding Seed money, sometimes known as seed funding or seed capital, is a form of securities offering in which an investor invests capital in a startup company in exchange for an equity stake or convertible note stake in the company. The term ''seed'' su ...

to start the firm. Arima read about the

prospecting Prospecting is the first stage of the geological analysis (followed by exploration) of a territory. It is the search for minerals, fossils, precious metals, or mineral specimens. It is also known as fossicking. Traditionally prospecting rel ...

work Leatherman had done in the

area. Leatherman had explored the area for lithium in surface rock in the late 2000s after thinking back to "the green-striped rocks in the yard of his childhood home in

he area He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...

The rocks contained rich veins of lithium." In September 2020, Piedmont signed a sales agreement with Tesla to supply high-purity lithium ore for up to ten years, specifically to supply "

spodumene Spodumene is a pyroxene mineral consisting of lithium aluminium inosilicate, Li Al( Si O3)2, and is a source of lithium. It occurs as colorless to yellowish, purplish, or lilac kunzite (see below), yellowish-green or emerald-green hiddenite, pr ...

concentrate (' SC6') from Piedmont's North Carolina deposit to Tesla." As of early 2021, Piedmont is

exploring Exploration refers to the historical practice of discovering remote lands. It is studied by geographers and historians. Two major eras of exploration occurred in human history: one of convergence, and one of divergence. The first, covering most ...

by drilling many sample cores across of land it owns or has

mineral rights Mineral rights are property rights to exploit an area for the minerals it harbors. Mineral rights can be separate from property ownership (see Split estate). Mineral rights can refer to sedentary minerals that do not move below the Earth's surfac ...

to in Gaston County that surface

had previously shown to contain substantial hard rock

mineral deposit Ore is natural rock or sediment that contains one or more valuable minerals, typically containing metals, that can be mined, treated and sold at a profit.Encyclopædia Britannica. "Ore". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 7 April ...

s in the surface rock. With substantial

demand In economics, demand is the quantity of a good that consumers are willing and able to purchase at various prices during a given time. The relationship between price and quantity demand is also called the demand curve. Demand for a specific item ...

growth for lithium occurring in the 2020s, lithium mining and production companies are growing and some are experiencing marked increases in market valuation. The stock prices of Piedmont Lithium, as well as Lithium Americas and MP Materials, increased substantially in early 2021 as a result of the increased importance of lithium to the global economy. In March 2021, Piedmont Lithium Ltd proposed a "re-domiciliation from Australia to the United States" under which a newly formed US corporation, Piedmont Lithium Inc, would acquire the Australian Company. The arrangement could be finalized as soon as 2Q21 if approved by the shareholders of Piedmont Lithium Ltd. Shareholders approved the proposal on April 29, 2021, and if several additional legal and regulatory conditions are met, the company could become a US corporation as early as May 17, 2021.

References

External links

Piedmont Lithium
{{Mining-stub Mining companies Multinational companies 2016 establishments in Australia Lithium mines in the United States Mineral exploration Geography of Gaston County, North Carolina Mining in North Carolina Proposed infrastructure in the United States Environment of North Carolina