Aurelia Butler

PHOENIX, Ariz. (Reuters) -Albemarle Corp plans to build a lithium processing plant in the United States that would produce as much of the electric vehicle battery metal as the entire company produces today, a bullish bet on America’s all-electric future, an executive said on Monday. The plan reflects Albemarle (NYSE:ALB)’s emerging strategy to lead the U.S. lithium renaissance, from mine development to processing to manufacturing types of the metal used to make high-end EV batteries.Eric Norris, head of Albemarle’s lithium division, said the company has seen a major shift in the last nine months in the United States with an “unprecedented” number of EV manufacturing plants announced, a harbinger the company believes will fuel a surge in lithium demand. The company as a result aims to build a processing plant with 100,000 tonnes of annual capacity in the U.S. Southeast somewhere within rail access of a major port, Norris said. “There isn’t enough (lithium) supply yet to supply the ambitions of the U.S.,” Norris told the Fastmarkets Lithium Supply and Battery Raw Materials conference in Phoenix, Arizona. “This (processing plant) will be essential for our success in the future.”Albemarle is in active discussions with automakers on buying supply from the facility, Norris said. Albemarle already supplies Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) Inc, as well as several other major automakers.While Albemarle had spoken vaguely in the past about building a U.S processing plant, it used Monday’s conference to announce the specific plan and said it will be key as the company aims to boost its overall lithium production capacity fivefold to 500,000 tonnes annually by 2030. The U.S. plant would be of a similar design to a processing plant Albemarle recently opened in Kemerton, Western Australia, though it would need to cost less than Kemerton, whose costs ballooned far above its initial target of $1.2 billion, Norris said. Albemarle plans to self-fund the facility, though it could apply for U.S. Department of Energy loans, he said. The plant would be supplied from lithium extracted from the company’s Kings Mountain mine in North Carolina, which is currently mothballed but may reopen as soon as 2027. The Kings Mountain facility would likely compete with a planned lithium mine and processing complex in a nearby North Carolina county from Piedmont Lithium Inc (O:PLL), which faces regulatory and local pushback. Unlike Piedmont’s mine, Kings Mountain would be a reopening of a facility that closed in the 1980s, a distinction that Norris said he expects to work in Albemarle’s favor.”This is an existing mine in a town that is very mining oriented,” Norris said. “We’re very present in the community.” More

U.S. bank Citi and pollsters YouGov said the expectations for inflation in five to 10 years fell to 4.0% in June from 4.2% in May, a move Citi described as encouraging.Inflation expectations for 12 months time were steady at 6.1%, the survey showed.BoE rate-setters are watching surveys for signs that high inflation – which hit a 40-year record of 9.1% last month – is becoming entrenched in the psychology of the British public, which would make it harder to bring inflation back to the BoE’s 2% target.Citi economist Benjamin Nabarro said inflation expectations were still elevated.”However, we see little in today’s data that should provide a further impetus for an outsized 50 basis point move (in interest rates) in August,” Nabarro added.Financial markets show a roughly 73% chance that the BoE will raise its Bank Rate to 1.75% from 1.25% at its next policy decision on Aug. 4. More

Sri Lanka has banned private vehicles from accessing fuel until July 10 as its government attempts to manage a severe shortage amid a worsening economic crisis.The government announced on Monday night that it would also close schools in urban areas for two weeks and would only allow fuel supplies for essential purposes such as medical services, trains and some buses, as well as vehicles that transport food.The nation of 22mn is going through its most severe debt and economic crisis in decades as a foreign exchange shortage has left the government unable to pay off its loans and import basics including food and medicine. Mass protests have put President Gotabaya Rajapaksa under pressure to resign. Clashes broke out between supporters and opponents of the government in Colombo, the capital, and elsewhere in the country last month, leaving nine dead and about 300 people injured.Sri Lanka defaulted on its overseas loans in May after missing interest payments on two $1.25bn sovereign bonds, becoming the first country in Asia-Pacific to do so in more than two decades. On Monday, Bandula Gunawardana, the spokesperson for the cabinet, told reporters that the country would only issue fuel to services deemed essential until July 10. Everyone urged to work from home, he said. Inter-provincial bus services were also expected to be stopped.“Sri Lanka has never faced such a severe economic crisis in its history,” Gunawardana said.The national power regulator said daily power cuts of about two-and-a-half hours would rise to about three or four hours per day.One man who works as a driver for tourists said he had queued for 48 hours for petrol late last week and was then only allowed to buy a ration worth SLRs20,000 ($56). The government is in talks with the IMF about a potential bailout of about $3bn. An IMF team arrived in Sri Lanka last week, and the country has sought about $4bn of financial assistance from India and China to import essential items.

Sri Lanka has been Asia’s largest high-yield bond issuer and an enthusiastic participant in Beijing’s Belt and Road international infrastructure scheme. The country owes a total of more than $50bn to private bondholders and nations including China, India and Japan.After the end of its civil war in 2009, Sri Lanka became a popular destination for bondholders looking for high-yielding investment opportunities and the ruling Rajapaksa family used debt-financed infrastructure projects to fuel growth. The island defaulted on its debt after the coronavirus pandemic led to a sharp drop in tourism and due to what analysts said was economic mismanagement by Rajapaksa, who cut taxes and imposed a ban on chemical fertilisers that damaged agricultural production. More