Battery Metals

Teslonix and Farsens, will be jointly exhibiting at Sensors Expo in San Jose, CA June 27 to 28 in booth # 1416. “By delivering more power to passive IoT sensors, Teslonix technology enables active device functionality with passive sensor economics in many applications,” stated Dr. C. Paul Slaby, CEO of Teslonix Inc.

“We have been working with Farsens for some time. The combination of Farsens’ passive sensor solutions with the extended range delivered by our IoT SmartKick solution makes cost-effective passive Smart Spaces and many Industrial IoT applications practical.”

“Our collaboration with Teslonix has proven that Farsens’ battery free sensor tags can be used in even more IoT applications due to enhanced read ranges” stated Ibon Zalbide, PhD, CEO of Farsens S.L

“With the ability of Teslonix technology to provide power at longer distances using UHF RFID readers, passive sensors and actuators can now be used in larger areas providing maintenance free data sources for the IoT.”

The most popular electric car in Utah is the Tesla Model X.

That’s according to a report by Amigo Energy based in Houston, Texas.

The report is based on what kind of cars people are searching for online in each state.

The BMW i8 is the most popular electric vehicle in 19 states.

The Chevy Bolt is searched for online more than other electric vehicles in nine states.

The Tesla Model S is most popular in California and ten other states.

Joining Utah in preferring the Tesla Model X are Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Iowa and North Dakota.

The KIA Soul EV is what residents of Oregon and Washington are looking for while in Illinois and New York, the Mitsubishi i-MiEV is the most searched for electric car.

The Nissan Leaf was the top electric car in Michigan, and the Ford Fusion Energi was searched more than any other electric car in Kansas.

Building on from the late fourth-quarter debt restructuring with its joint-venture partners at the Ambatovy nickel/cobalt mine, in Madagascar, the company has made further good progress tp reduce debt in the first quarter, successfully undertaking a tender offer for its three public series debentures.

“We were able to buy back about $120-million in debt for a price of about $110-million. We’d like to see a cycle-proof balance sheet by further reducing debt and leveraging our exposure to the rising nickel and cobalt prices,” Pathe pointed out.

According to Pathe, the first-quarter results demonstrated the progress management has made to restructure the company’s finances in order to allay market concerns regarding the structuring of its former balance sheet and high debt levels.

Last year, the company swapped a 28% equity stake in the Ambatovy project – reducing its holdings from 40% to 12%whilst remaining the operator – and in the process eliminating about C$1.4-billion in debt from the balance sheet.

“It had a dramatic effect on our recent first-quarter financial statements that reflect the full impact of that. It really was quite milestone for us, and took our debt levels from more than C$2-billion to about C$700-million, which is more in line with our capacity. Our exposure to Amabtovy is now also more in line and of similar size as the rest of our portfolio,” Pathe said.

He outlined how the company has emerged from a prolonged period of low nickel and low cobalt prices, until relatively recently. During that time, management’s focus was on managing liquidity, and the balance sheet, making the restructuring of Ambatovy really pivotal for the company. It was the culmination of four years of withstanding a severe and protracted price drought and trough, coupled with high debt levels and spending commitments at Ambatovy.

“We’ve now hopefully removed the market’s immediate balance sheet and liquidity concerns, and are focused to get us back to a position where we can plan for the longer term again, along the potential of rising nickel and cobalt prices,” he said.

The company is really only now starting to see the benefit of its focus on cost containment as metals prices are creeping up, Pathe pointed out. He noted for instance that at the Moa JV, in Cuba – where the bulk of Sherritt’s cash flow for metals are generated given the structuring of Ambatovy – it is already starting to see positive cash flows cash coming out of the operation over the last three quarters, with the first quarter delivering about C$18-million in cash flow from the laterite mining operation alone. “Because of the scale of that operation, there’s a lot of leverage to the nickel price,” Pathe stated.

“We’ve had our costs at Moa fall over the last two quarters to the bottom quartile of low-cost producers in the world. We produce a Class I battery-amenable nickel briquette. Every dollar increase in the nickel price is worth about C$40-million a year to us in cash flow,” Pathe noted.

“With our balance sheet restructured, we don’t have a debt maturity until the fourth quarter 2021, so we’ve now got quite a long runway ahead of us before we need to worry about debt again, and in the meantime enjoy the benefits of our work,” he said.

STRONG RESULTS

Sherritt has reported a narrower first-quarter headline loss of C$14.7-million, or C$0.04 a share, compared with a loss of C$82.7-million, or C$0.28 a share, for the same period of 2017, mainly as higher metals prices made up for lower output.

Nickel prices continued to rally in the three-month period ended March 31, sustaining the momentum established in the second half of 2017. The average reference price in the period was $6.03/lb, up 29% from $4.66/lb in the first quarter of 2017. The average reference price for the period marked the highest since the first quarter of 2015 when it was $6.50/lb.

The year-on-year price improvement was driven by a number of developments, the main one being the growing understanding of the important role that Class I nickel will play in the growing electric vehicle (EV) market. Class I nickel, along with cobalt, are key metals needed to manufacture EV batteries. Demand for Class I nickel and cobalt are expected to grow significantly beginning in 2019, when China expects to begin production quotas requiring that 10% of all vehicles manufactured be electric.

Similarly, cobalt prices rose 97% year-on-year to $39.01/lb, up from $19.80/lb for the comparable period of 2017.

Sherritt said the near-doubling of cobalt prices over the past year is mainly linked to the growing strong demand emanating from the EV battery market. Higher cobalt prices were also driven by geopolitical and supply risk concerns given that the Democratic Republic of Congo is currently the world’s largest source of cobalt.

As cobalt prices have a limited impact on overall battery pack costs, high prices are not expected to cause supply-chain disruptions or delay EV market growth. As a result, the risk of cobalt substitution in EV battery production in the near term is relatively low given cobalt’s unique energy transference properties.

Sherritt reported that its Moa JV produced 2 854 t of finished nickel in the quarter, down 26% from the 3 840 t produced a year earlier. Finished cobalt output was 336 t, down 23% from 436 t a year ago. Sherritt attributed this to the reduced availability of mixed sulphides caused by the highest level of rainfall at Moa’s operations in more than 20 years, which limited access to planned mining areas, as well as transportation delays to the refinery by the rail service provider.

Ambatovy’s finished nickel output amounted to 668 t, down from 1 145 t on the same basis, a year earlier. Finished attributable cobalt output came to 49 t, down from 97 t a year earlier.

The company lowered the Ambatovy cobalt production outlook on account of lower grades to a range of 3 500 t to 3 800 t, from 3 900 t to 4 200 t.

Meanwhile, Sherritt’s gross working-interest oil production in the period, in Cuba, was 5 572 bbl/d, down 63% year-on-year from 15 213 bbl/d for the comparable period of 2017. The decrease was primarily owing to the expiration of the Varadero West production sharing contract in November, natural reservoir declines and the absence of new development drilling.

Subsequent to quarter end, Sherritt finalised the evaluation of available and proven technology to complete drilling of the second well on Block 10 targeting the Lower Veloz reservoir. Drilling is slated to resume in early July, with preliminary drilling results expected in the third quarter. The company has budgeted $13-million for the Block 10 drill campaign.

Johnson Control Power Solutions battery division announced Wednesday that the St. Joseph plant will manufacture a portion of batteries destined for use by two major commercial vehicle firms.

The company has been awarded contracts to supply absorbent glass mat and flooded batteries to Illinois-based Navistar and MAN Truck and Bus of Germany. Officials said the contracts are designed to meet increasing electrical demands on heavy-duty trucks and buses around the world.

“The (St. Joseph) plant will manufacture some of the batteries for this Navistar contract,” said Kari Pfisterer, a spokeswoman for the company’s Power Solutions business in Milwaukee.

Johnson Controls will supply the batteries under the Fleetrite brand to Navistar’s three North American original equipment production plants and to the aftermarket through its more than 700 truck and bus dealerships. Johnson Controls’ batteries are now standard for Navistar’s original equipment International truck models.

The company also will supply absorbent glass mat truck batteries to the European original equipment production plants and aftermarket service centers of MAN Truck and Bus. Johnson Controls is investing in new manufacturing capabilities at its Hannover, Germany, plant. The St. Joseph portion of the contract is only with Navistar.

Several recent trends in fleet operations, including new in-vehicle technologies and regulations, are increasing the electrical demands on commercial fleets throughout the industry, requiring more capable batteries.

“Johnson Controls will continue to invest in our operations to support this growing industry,” said Petar Oklobdzija, group vice president and general manager of Original Equipment, Johnson Controls Power Solutions.

The global commercial truck battery market is expected to grow nearly 7 percent by 2020, to an anticipated volume of approximately 95 million batteries.

Fisker’s on-again-off-again solid-state battery program received a shot in the arm from the company’s founder, Henrik Fisker. After announcing solid-state batteries for the automaker’s upcoming EMotion electric car, and then pushing the timeline back, the holy-grail batteries are reportedly back on.

The company’s founder told E For Electric in a new interview that the hope is to launch the EMotion with the game-changing batteries.

For the backstory, Fisker announced in 2016 that the EMotion would arrive with next-generation lithium-ion cell technology using graphene electrodes. The solid-state batteries were to provide 400 miles of range for the electric car. Alas, in June of 2017, Fisker then announced the batteries would not launch with the electric car.

Instead, nickel-manganese-cobalt-type lithium-ion batteries were slated to juice the EV and 400 miles of range remained on the table.

Then, in November of 2017, Fisker revealed patents for solid-state cell technology and announced ranges over 500 miles with charging times potentially as quick as one minute. The company did not confirm whether the batteries would launch with the car in 2020, though.

Fisker’s new optimism to launch the battery technology in 2020 comes as the company prepares for in-vehicle tests sometime next year. Right now, the solid-state batteries remain in a lab-testing phase.

The timeline would be remarkable if Fisker manages to pull off the technological revolution. Numerous automakers continue to work toward bringing solid-state batteries to market first. Japan’s major automakers recently joined forces to potentially bring the units to market by 2025.

The batteries offer numerous benefits for automakers as well with regards to operational safety and performance. But, hurdles remain. Right now, no company has a manufacturing process on the table for solid-state batteries. Perhaps Fisker can be first, but Mr. Fisker has a history of producing some pie-in-the-sky comments.

The Nikkei reports that Chinese automotive battery maker CATL (Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd.) will provide lithium-ion batteries to Nissan Motor and Renault.

CATL will produce batteries for Nissan’s Sylphy Zero Emission electric sedan (earlier post), scheduled to hit the Chinese market in the latter half of the year. This marks the company’s first deal with a Japanese automaker.

The Sylphy will be Nissan’s first electric vehicle mass-produced in China. It is expected to offer a driving range of 338 km (210 miles).

Renault plans to use CATL batteries for the electric version of its Kangoo compact van under development. CATL already supplies such European automakers as BMW and Volkswagen and hopes to leverage the Renault deal to further solidify its foothold in Europe, the Nikkei said.

CATL is expected to raise about $2 billion from its initial public offering, which could come as early as summer. The funds are expected to be used to boost output capacity, launching mass production plants in the US and Europe as well.

CATL currently offers a series of Li-ion NCM cells targeted for light duty vehicles: as well as solutions for trucks and buses.

CATL also offers cells designed for electric trucks and buses.

CATL aims to have battery output equivalent to 30 GWh by the end of 2019, raising it to the equivalent of 50 GWh by 2020 from 23 GWh in 2017.