With structural market deficits projected to grow for most battery metals over the next decade, companies are scrambling to find and build more supply. Here are four more companies with significant projects to watch.
Hastings Technology Metals
Hastings Technology Metals (ASX: HAS) is targeting first production in this year’s fourth quarter at its 40%-owned Yangibana rare earths project in Western Australia. Wyloo Gascoyne, a subsidiary of privately held Wyloo Metals, holds the remaining 60% and is the operator of the joint venture (JV).
The fully permitted and shovel-ready open-pit project, 250 km northeast of Carnarvon, will be developed in two stages, with the first focused on the mine and beneficiation plant to produce a rare earth concentrate.
In the second stage, a hydrometallurgical facility will be built to process the concentrate into an intermediate product called a mixed rare earth carbonate (MREC). The plant will have capacity to produce up to 15,000 tonnes MREC a year at 59% total rare earth oxides (TREO). This product can then be shipped for further downstream processing into neodymium-praseodymium (NdPr) oxides, which are then metallized and alloyed before being made into a permanent magnet.
A staged development study of Yangibana in 2023 outlined an initial mine life of 17 years with annual average production of 37,000 tonnes of rare earth concentrate at 27% TREO. The study pegged the post-tax net present value (ungeared) at $865 million and the internal rate of return (IRR) at 31.28%. Initial capex of A$474 million ($329.3 million) could be repaid in 3.4 years.
The project contains 24.49 million measured and indicated tonnes grading 0.9% TREO and 0.33% Nd and Pr. Inferred resources add 5.45 million tonnes averaging 1.05% TREO and 0.31% NdPr.
The project offers further upside as a niobium producer, hosting 6.7 million measured and indicated tonnes grading 2,305 ppm niobium pentoxide, according to a resource estimate in September 2024.
In October, Hastings and JV partner Wyloo Gascoyne signed a non-binding agreement with North American rare earth processor Ucore Rare Metals (TSXV: UCU).
The deal covers the sale of up to 37,000 tonnes per year of rare earth concentrate. The companies are also exploring the feasibility of building a downstream hydrometallurgy plant in Louisiana to produce MREC.
Hastings Technology Metals has a market cap of about A$111 million.
Northern Graphite
Northern Graphite (TSXV: NGC; US-OTC: NGPHF) plans to make the leap from a graphite miner in Canada to a fully integrated battery anode material producer in Saudi Arabia.
In January, the Ottawa-based company signed a 51-49 JV agreement with the Obeikan Investment Group, a family-run industrial business head-quartered in Riyadh, to build a $200-million battery anode material plant in Yanbu, an industrial city and logistics hub on the Red Sea.
The partners envision a scaleable facility that in its first stage will produce about 25,000 tonnes of graphite concentrate a year starting in 2028. Construction is slated to begin this year. Project debt financing will be sourced from Saudi government finance agencies and local and global commercial banks.
A final feasibility study for the plant is to be completed by June. Discussions are underway with global battery manufacturers for long-term offtake agreements for the initial 25,000 tonnes per year of production. The JV also plans to purchase up to 50,000 tonnes of graphite concentrate a year from Northern Graphite’s Okanjande mine in Namibia.
The fully permitted Okanjande mine has been on care and maintenance since 2018. A preliminary economic assessment in 2023 contemplated a 10-year mine life producing 31,000 tonnes of graphite concentrate a year.
Northern currently produces battery grade flake graphite at its Lac des Iles mine in Quebec, about 150 km northwest of Montreal. It is the only commercially-producing graphite mine in North America. Titan Mining’s (TSX: TI; NYSE-A: TII) Empire State complex in upstate New York began producing in December though it’s still ramping up to nameplate capacity.
Acquired in 2022, Lac des Iles produces 15,000 tonnes of graphite concentrate a year with installed capacity of 25,000 tonnes per year. An updated resource in 2024 showed potential to expand the mine life by an additional eight years with another pit, and stripping is underway. The mine has 3.3 million indicated tonnes at an average grade of 6.4% graphitic carbon (Cg) and 1.4 million inferred tonnes averaging 7.4% Cg.
The company also owns the advanced-stage Bissett Creek graphite project in Ontario.
In April last year, Northern partnered with the BMI Group to evaluate the feasibility of establishing a battery anode material plant at a former paper mill in Baie-Comeau, Que.
Northern Graphite has a market cap of about $69 million.
Savannah Resources
Savannah Resources (LSE: SAV) is developing the largest spodumene lithium deposit in Europe at its Barroso project in northern Portugal. The European Commission classified Barroso as a strategic project under the Critical Raw Materials Act in March 2025.
Barroso, 420 km northeast of Lisbon and 145 km from the industrial port of Leixões, is expected to produce around 190,000 tonnes of spodumene concentrate a year. The company is targeting commissioning and first production in late 2028.
In January the company received a grant of €110 million ($128 million) from the Portuguese government. Of that, 75% (€82.25 million) will be committed to initial development expenditure and the remaining 25% (€27.42 million) will be linked to performance milestones during the operational stage.
The mine plan in a 2023 scoping study modelled five open pits with the capacity to produce enough lithium to supply 60-kilowatt car battery packs per year for about 500,000 electric vehicles.
The study envisioned an annual run rate of 1.5 million tonnes of ore per year with an estimated life-of-mine average head grade of 0.96% lithium oxide (Li2O), an overall strip ratio of 5.9:1 (waste to ore ratio), and a 14-year-mine life.
The study outlined a post-tax NPV (at an 8% discount rate) of $953 million and an IRR of 77%. Initial capital of $236 million could be repaid in 1.3 years.
The project has a JORC-compliant resource of 26.6 million measured and indicated tonnes grading 1.05% Li20 for 280,000 contained tonnes Li2O and 12.4 million inferred tonnes averaging 1.06% Li20 for 131,000 tonnes Li2O. The resource used a 0.5% Li20 cut-off grade and was based on all deposits including in under-application areas.
The project features two adjacent mining leases, one awarded in 2006 for an initial 30-year period and another awarded in 2024 for an initial 25 years.
Savannah Resources has a market cap of about £134 million.
Talga Group
Talga Group (ASX: TLG; US-OTC: TLGRF) is building Europe’s largest and richest graphite mine at its Nunasvaara South deposit near Vittangi in northern Sweden and will use graphite from the mine to feed a planned anode material refinery in the major port city of Lulea.
The Swedish government formally adopted the company’s detailed mine plan in January, paving the way for Talga to proceed with detailed design work and secure building permits.
In its first stage, the refinery will produce 19,500 tonnes of graphite anode a year for 24 years. Once completed, the plant will produce enough anode material for 16 gigawatt hours of battery capacity a year, or enough for about 250,000 electric vehicles.
Nunasvaara South was designated a deposit of national interest in June 2020. Last year the Lulea refinery was designated as a strategic project by the European Union and as a Net-Zero strategic project by the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth.
In October, the Swedish Energy Agency’s Industrial Leap program awarded Talga the amount of SEK 82.6 million ($9.2 million) in state aid to partly fund engineering work and studies for a 5,000 tonne-per-year anode line to meet short-term demand.
The company also has been awarded an EU Innovation Fund grant of €70 million for the refinery project, which will have a total building area of 36,000 sq. metres, or roughly five football fields.
Vittangi, which hosts the Nunasaara South-North-East and the Niska North-South deposits, contains battery-size flake and is suited for fast-charge batteries.
The deposit hosts 26.69 million indicated tonnes grading 24.3% graphitic carbon (Cg) and 9 million inferred tonnes of 22.1% Cg, according to a JORC-compliant resource from 2023.
Elsewhere in Sweden, Talga owns cobalt-copper-gold, iron ore and prospective lithium deposits, which it intends to commercialize to support its flagship battery and advanced materials projects.
Its Aero lithium project, which was initially staked for its copper potential, has lithium-bearing pegmatites hosting surface mineralization of up to 1.95% Li2O.
Talga Group has a market cap of about A$200 million.
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