[TusharK]

According to government officials, massive reserves of lithium have been discovered in Degana, Rajasthan.



The latest discovery of deposits at the Rewat hill area of Degana is said to be higher than those found in Jammu and Kashmir. There is said to be enough lithium to cater to 80% of India's total demand.

Lithium is a non-ferrous metal that is used in rechargeable batteries. The demand for this lightweight metal has increased in recent times as the world transitions to electric mobility. Today, lithium is called White Gold and costs around Rs 57.46 lakh per tonne.

At present, India sources its lithium from the international market, with China accounting for 53.67% of our imports. The discovery of new reserves will help reduce our dependence on imported lithium, especially from China.

Bolivia has the largest reserves of lithium estimated to be around 21 million tonnes, followed by Argentina, Chile and America. China's lithium reserves stand at 5.1 million tonnes.

Source: ET Auto

Link to Team-BHP News

[PreludeSH]

Good to hear. Not sure when we start mining and will be available.

By the way, regarding the lithium we are importing, is it in the form of finished products or we can import lithium and create products out of it ?

We need to encourage industries that can use it and create valued products before we mine them. Its easier to make money in short term and export raw materials and not invest in developing them locally.

[Maverick_4662]

This is great news for India's push towards EVs and solar power. Prices of Lithium batteries should drop drastically over the next decade.

[MrMcqueen]

It is good to hear that India is having Lithium Reserves and can help india be energy independent in future but to me following questions needed to be answered but unable to find the details anywhere.

1.What is the survey stage of the above news (there are four stages G4 to G1)

Lithium reserves recently announced in Jammu and Kashmir is the result of G3 Exploration by GSI.

it would be of great if someone could share any sources or articles.

2. Is the mining of the Lithium economical...? (as it varies by area to area)
there is no company in India who has the expertise in mining lithium in India. (Someone can correct me if i am wrong)

3. Is refining of the mined metal is also economical?
there is no company in India who has the expertise in mining lithium in India. (Someone can correct me if i am wrong)

4. What about other materials reserves in Li-ion battery like Copper, Nickel, Manganese, Cobalt? which make the majority of the Raw material in Li-ion cells

it would be very interesting if someone could share their thoughts as well.

[bhairavp]

Will believe this once mine auctions start, both here and in Jammu.

[ferrarirules]

Originally Posted by MrMcqueen

It is good to hear that India is having Lithium Reserves and can help india be energy independent in future but to me following questions needed to be answered but unable to find the details anywhere.

1.What is the survey stage of the above news (there are four stages G4 to G1)

Lithium reserves recently announced in Jammu and Kashmir is the result of G3 Exploration by GSI.

it would be of great if someone could share any sources or articles.

2. Is the mining of the Lithium economical...? (as it varies by area to area)
there is no company in India who has the expertise in mining lithium in India. (Someone can correct me if i am wrong)

3. Is refining of the mined metal is also economical?
there is no company in India who has the expertise in mining lithium in India. (Someone can correct me if i am wrong)

4. What about other materials reserves in Li-ion battery like Copper, Nickel, Manganese, Cobalt? which make the majority of the Raw material in Li-ion cells

it would be very interesting if someone could share their thoughts as well.

I don't think your assumptions are right. GoI formed Khanij Bidesh India Ltd (KABIL) as a JV of a National Aluminium Company Ltd.(NALCO), Hindustan Copper Ltd.(HCL) and Mineral Exploration Company Ltd. (MECL) - link. These companies are tasked to explore and mine strategic minerals like lithium and cobalt

Also, the recent battery chemistry being used by EV cars in India is Lithium Ferrous Phosphate which has Lithium, Iron and Phosphorus as core elements. Nickel, manganese and cobalt are not needed as much. As of now in mass market players, only Mahindra is using NMC battery.

Originally Posted by PreludeSH

Good to hear. Not sure when we start mining and will be available.

By the way, regarding the lithium we are importing, is it in the form of finished products or we can import lithium and create products out of it ?

We need to encourage industries that can use it and create valued products before we mine them. Its easier to make money in short term and export raw materials and not invest in developing them locally.

There are manufacturers in India already. Tata autocomp systems - link. They are suppliers to bajaj, tata motors and recently to MG for comet. Amaraja has recently laid the foundation stone for its gigafactory - link. Log9 backed by Amaraja has inaugurated its 50 MW facility recently - link

[aim120]

Originally Posted by ferrarirules

I

There are manufacturers in India already. Tata autocomp systems - link. They are suppliers to bajaj, tata motors and recently to MG for comet. Amaraja has recently laid the foundation stone for its gigafactory - link. Log9 backed by Amaraja has inaugurated its 50 MW facility recently - link

Tata imports cells from Gotion and assembles the battery pack. There is Zero cell level lithium battery manufacturers in India as of today.

Everyone in India so far only assembles the battery pack from cells imported from China, South Korea and Japan.

Even if they inaugurate a Cell manufacturing plant, it will take atleast 2 years for start ups and companies like Amaraja to fine tune and iron out teething issues before supplying to industries.

[ike]

I'm skeptical, not sure how many people remember in 2005 we announced a 20 trillion cubic feet gas reserve had been found in Gujarat and then turned out to be much much lesser than the initial estimation.

[anjan_c2007]

The media report is very sketchy and gives no details about sources from where the news emanated or the reserves/resources established. Degana is s mineralisation belt though, where there was a tungsten mine. Sadly, mining was unfeasible and was abandoned more than a decade ago.

Again I would like to comment as a GSI insider, that it is much too early to establish and report resources or reserves as of now. GSI is still undertaking exploration activities in the reported area. This news could be emanating from Rajasthan State Directorate of Mining and Geology (DMG) or else could have been gathered by some overenthusiastic media reporter from their sources.

So far as the reserve figures are concerned these media reports cannot at all be accepted on their face value. It will be even praiseworthy if the occurrence and the location quoted are factually correct. GSI will surely do the follow up and bring out authentic estimates whenever the mineral exploration programme in the area reaches a conclusive stage.

Media as a rule confuses the public. One needs to give cognisance to Press Information Bureau notes or PTI news reports only especially in such cases. Such reports are in most of the cases are written notes vetted by GSI or Ministry of Mines. This subtle difference between two terminologies - Resource and Reserve is actually putting GSI on the back foot on many occasions unnecessarily.

[ferrarirules]

Originally Posted by aim120

Tata imports cells from Gotion and assembles the battery pack. There is Zero cell level lithium battery manufacturers in India as of today.

Everyone in India so far only assembles the battery pack from cells imported from China, South Korea and Japan.

Even if they inaugurate a Cell manufacturing plant, it will take atleast 2 years for start ups and companies like Amaraja to fine tune and iron out teething issues before supplying to industries.

The third company -Log9- I mentioned has 50 MW facility up and running in Jakkur, Bengaluru. That is why i gave examples of three different setups of EV battery manufacturing currently. Teething troubles or not, question was that are there cell manufacturers today or not? Answer is yes.

Finally the thread is about a lithium reserve find and the importance of it. With manufacturing investment happening, there is a need of country owned lithium reserves and these finds are pointing in that direction.

I forgot to mention, OLA is also slated to open their cell manufacturing facility by end of 2023 - link

Excerpt from the Log 9 article -

Amara Raja-backed Log9 Materials, which had earlier outlined an outlay of Rs 2,350 crore over the next few years, inaugurated the country's first lithium-ion cell manufacturing facility in Bengaluru. The battery technology startup had earlier told Moneycontrol that it will be investing Rs 150 crore on building a cell manufacturing facility.

Log9’s commercial Li-ion cell production facility, which will have an initial capacity of 50 Megawatt hours (MWh), will be located at its campus in Jakkur, Bengaluru. This facility will cater to LTO (Lithium titanate (LTO) and LFP ((lithium ferrophosphate) cell manufacturing, the company said.
The manufacturing line will support production of large form factor cylindrical cells ranging from 22 Series to 66 Series. On the 5-year cell production roadmap, Log9’s LTO TiB cells will contribute to a carbon emission reduction of 90T per vehicle with a total CO2 reduction of 147 kT every year, as stated by the company in its release.

[Hayek]

Originally Posted by TusharK

According to government officials, massive reserves of lithium have been discovered in Degana, Rajasthan.

The discovery of deposits is said to be higher than those found in Jammu and Kashmir. There is enough lithium to cater to 80% of India's demand.

Sorry to say this but this is nonsensical spin being dished out by unnamed government officials. The discovery of G3 “reserves” in Jammu was at least formally announced with a properly worded release. Have not been able to find anything concrete on this other than all the media quoting unnamed government officials.

In the case of Jammu as well, G3 as GSI calls it, is not what other countries refer to as Reserves. Reserves are what GSI calls G1 - viz deposits that have been proven to extractable in a commercially viable manner. There is significant development activity and risk involved before G3 inferred resources can be turned into proven and economically viable reserves. As mentioned in threads on the Jammu find, Lithium is not a particularly rare metal - it constitutes 20 parts per million of the earth’s crust, which seems low until you realise that is 50% more abundant than Lead.

Today, lithium is called White Gold and costs around Rs 57.46 lakh per tonne.

Yet another ridiculous quote. Gold accounts for 0.0011 parts per million or 1.1 parts per billion of the earth’s crust, and costs ₹59 lakhs per kg viz a 1000 times more than Lithium

The discovery of new reserves will help reduce our dependence on imported lithium, especially from China. Bolivia has the largest reserves of lithium estimated to be around 21 million tonnes, followed by Argentina, Chile and America. China's lithium reserves stand at 5.1 million tonnes.

An example of making assertions contradicted by the data presented as supporting them. We import Lithium from China because China refines Lithium ores into raw Lithium. Lithium is highly reactive - only Potassium and Sodium among common metals are more reactive. So extracting Lithium from ores is the challenge, not finding ores. And that is what China has mastered.

Originally Posted by MrMcqueen

1.What is the survey stage of the above news (there are four stages G4 to G1)

Great question - found no answer despite trying fairly diligently.

[ferrarirules]

Latest update - GSI has stated that reports of large reserves iin Rajasthan is baseless - link.
They have stated that the exploration is happening in the said area for tungsten, lithium and other minerals. But the drilling is still in progress. They will share report once it is completed

[sagsaw]

Total baseless report.

Looks like someone wants faster adoption of Electric vehicles to get fastest and highest ROI in the supply chain of EV parts and components.

Obviously its neither Govt. nor Manufacturers who will do such stupidity in hope.

Hence such stories planted to evoke Nationalism based buying.

[travelling owl]

Lithium can be found at lot of places but then the extraction is not economical. Eve if they have found a resource, validating the economics is still going to be the key thing.

Originally Posted by aim120

Even if they inaugurate a Cell manufacturing plant, it will take atleast 2 years for start ups and companies like Amaraja to fine tune and iron out teething issues before supplying to industries.

Even companies like NorthVolt, Tesla, Panasonic, BYD, etc with all the capital might take years to build and stabalise their manufacturing process. 2 years to be frank is quite agressive and not realistic. That is also one of the reason why lithium battery prices went up because the manufacturing couldnt catch up with the demand, as factories took time to be online. One of the best article on the whole lithium manufacturing, this is from Ola Chief Manufacturing Engineer https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cell-...FupD008Q%3D%3D

[anjan_c2007]

From the horse's mouth:-