Lithium Americas Corp.’s subsidiary, Lithium Nevada Corp., has received a grant from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) for the acceleration of its Thacker Pass lithium project located in Humboldt County, Nevada. The $11.8 million grant, leveraging Defense Production Act Title III authorities, will support upgrades to important infrastructure necessary to accelerate the extraction and processing of lithium carbonate.
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The site of the future transloading terminal in Winnemucca, adjacent to rail.
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Power lines run across the Thacker Pass site, providing easily accessible power sourced from hydroelectric providers.
Lithium Americas Corp.’s subsidiary, Lithium Nevada Corp., has received a grant from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) for the acceleration of its Thacker Pass lithium project located in Humboldt County, Nevada. The $11.8 million grant, leveraging Defense Production Act Title III authorities, will support upgrades to important infrastructure necessary to accelerate the extraction and processing of lithium carbonate.
“This grant from the DoD provides us with funds to support an upgrade of the local infrastructure and to help build a state-of-the-art transloading facility that will bring raw materials used to make battery-grade lithium carbonate at Thacker Pass,” said Jonathan Evans, President and Chief Executive Officer. “We plan to use the DoD grant to both scale the transloading facility faster and to support improvements to local power transmission.”
We are also working closely with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to close the previously announced loan for which the DOE provided a conditional commitment of up to $2.26 billion under the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) Loan Program for Phase 1 of Thacker Pass. For full details of the DOE ATVM loan, refer to our March 14, 2024 news release.
Mr. Evans added, “We are grateful for the support of both the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Defense to help us bring Thacker Pass to production as together we seek to strengthen North America’s critical minerals supply chain.”
Thacker Pass is designed to produce battery-grade lithium carbonate in two phases. Phase 1 is for an initial production of 40,000 tonnes per year (tpa) and Phase 2 targets an additional 40,000 tpa, for total production capacity of 80,000 tpa. Construction on Phase 1 commenced in early 2023. The Company estimates production from Thacker Pass Phase 1 and 2 could support lithium needs for a domestic production supply chain for up to 1.6 million electric vehicles annually.
(All amounts in US$ unless otherwise indicated)