Canadian mining company Lithium Americas has finalized a $250 million investment from Orion Resource Partners, which will fund the first phase of the Thacker Pass mine in Nevada. With the secured investment, Lithium Americas and GM are moving forward with the mine’s construction. Thacker Pass will supply battery-quality lithium carbonate, contributing to North America’s supply chain for critical minerals in the EV manufacturing process.
“Today marks another important milestone in our journey to bring Thacker Pass to production,” Lithium Americas President and CEO Jonathan Evans said. “With our JV Partner, GM, we announced FID for Phase 1 alongside our other exceptional partners – the U.S. DOE and Orion. Together, we will develop a U.S.-produced lithium supply chain to reduce American dependence on foreign suppliers for critical minerals.”
Thacker Pass is 62-percent owned by Lithium Americas, and GM has a 38-percent interest for a total of $625 million in cash and letters of credit. GM has already contributed $330 million of cash to the joint venture alongside Lithium Americas’s $138 million. Additionally, the U.S. Department of Energy is providing a $2.26 billion loan for Thacker Pass, which was approved during President Trump’s first term and granted by the Biden Administration.
Construction for this mining operation is expected to take at least three years, and it’s expected to open by the end of this decade. Once operational, the mine is expected to maintain up to 360 full-time jobs. When fully operational, Thacker Pass is expected to produce 40,000 metric tons of lithium carbonate annually in its first phase, which is enough for batteries for up to 800,000 electric vehicles.
The site is located just south of the Nevada-Oregon border. Initial construction began in March of 2023 after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied a request for an emergency injunction that would have prevented the project from moving forward in light of a court case brought forward by Indigenous communities, ranchers, and conservationists. Indigenous groups claim that the mine is built illegally near the sacred site where their ancestors were massacred in the late 1800s.
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