A joint battery venture of Toyota Motor Corp and Panasonic Corp will buy lithium from ioneer Ltd’s Rhyolite Ridge mining project and use the metal to build electric vehicle batteries in the United States.
The binding supply deal, announced on Sunday, is the second in less than a month for ioneer and a strong vote of confidence in a project that is racing to be the first new U.S. source of the battery metal in decades.
Under the terms of the deal, ioneer will supply 4,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate annually for five years to Prime Planet Energy & Solutions (PPES), which was formed by Toyota and Panasonic in 2020 to better compete with battery market leader Contemporary Amperex Technology Co Ltd (CATL).