Firm Acquires North Carolina Site for New Lithium Plant

July 5, 2018

2 Min Read
Firm Acquires North Carolina Site for New Lithium Plant
The recently-purchased site in North Carolina where Piedmont Lithium Limited plans to build a new plant. Image courtesy of Piedmont Lithium

As part of plans to restart a dormant Lithium production region in North Carolina, Piedmont Lithium Limited recently purchased a 60.6-acre site in Kings Mountain, NC where the company may construct a new lithium chemical plant, a press release announced Thursday.

Located within 20 miles of Piedmont’s proposed spodumene mine and concentrator, the plant would process spodumene concentrate into lithium chemicals, including battery-grade lithium hydroxide.

“We are very pleased to have identified such an attractive site for our downstream operations,” said Keith D. Phillips, president and chief executive officer of Piedmont, in a statement. “The site is a short drive from our core mining and concentration properties, it is the proper scale for our contemplated lithium chemical production operations, and it offers all the infrastructure one would seek for such a facility.”

The parcel of land is located near Interstate I-85 and US Highway 29 and offers direct access to the Norfolk Southern rail line. Piedmont expects to make the site a component of its scoping study, set for release in the third quarter of this year, and then pursue permitting for the plant.

Plans for the new facility are part of the company’s efforts to develop the Piedmont Lithium Project, a lithium exploration region in North Carolina. Two major mines in the region shuttered in the 1990s, but two lithium processing plants in the area have remained active.

Piedmont intends to “fast track the Piedmont Lithium project towards production as a fully-integrated domestic source of lithium and capitalize on the widely anticipated shortfall of lithium in global markets over the next decade,” according to the firm’s website.

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