World leader in mineral specialties for industry, the Imerys group announced on Monday, October 24, the launch of a major lithium mining project in Echassières (Allier). Since the end of the 19the century, this open-pit mine, known as “de Beauvoir”, named after the former operating company, and located on the edge of the Colettes forest, on the border of the departments of Allier and Puy-de-Dôme, produces 25,000 to 30,000 tons of kaolin each year, intended for ceramics.
Studies and core drilling predict the presence at depth of high concentrations of lithium hydroxide, in total one million tonnes with a content of between 0.9% and 1% oxide, confirming the estimates of the Bureau of Geological and Mining Research (BRGM). This deposit will allow the extraction of 34,000 tonnes for twenty-five years. Imerys will thus become a leading supplier on the European market, with a capacity to equip 700,000 vehicles with lithium-ion batteries per year.
In addition to the studies already carried out for 30 million euros, the project will require a minimum investment of one billion euros, on the basis of a lithium production cost estimated at between 7 euros and 9 euros per kilo. Imerys the judge “very competitive, in particular on the European market, and able to guarantee a return on investment in accordance with the guidelines of the group”.
“Decarbonization and sovereignty”
Production will begin in early 2028, following the evaluation phases and industrial experiments, to quickly lead to the creation of 1,000 direct or indirect jobs. In this granitic zone known for its richness in rare minerals, work on hard rock will initially focus on a depth between 75 and 350 meters, to extract lithium using underground processes.
The production will be transported by an underground pipeline of about ten kilometers to the nearest station, to then take the direction of a refinement unit “located in the region”, according to Imerys, a short circuit put forward by the promoters of the project, who have insisted on the integration of the Beauvoir mine into the countryside for more than a century.
“It is a question of responding to the challenge of the energy transition by offering a sustainable decarbonization solution while increasing the sovereignty of France and Europe by reducing imports”, underlines Alessandro Dazza, CEO of Imerys. The demand for lithium is indeed growing exponentially. In 2020, the European Commission described the situation as ” critical “.
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