news release<\/a>.\u00a0\u201cCGF is providing important capital that helps de-risk\u00a0the staged\u00a0expansion and gives us greater certainty to deliver growth at NAL. We appreciate the continued focus on building a resilient North American lithium supply chain anchored in Quebec.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\nThe\u00a0mine,\u00a0located\u00a0about\u00a0570\u00a0kilometres\u00a0north of Montreal, is Canada\u2019s\u00a0largest operating lithium mine. It\u00a0provides a domestic source of a critical mineral used in electric vehicle batteries and energy storage systems. Its production helps reduce reliance on imports from major global suppliers while supporting Canada\u2019s broader efforts to build more resilient battery material supply chains.\u00a0The project is also\u00a0anticipated\u00a0to support approximately 252 existing jobs within the area.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The mine expansion is expected to increase annual spodumene concentrate production to approximately 315,000\u00a0tonnes, extending operations over an estimated 24-year\u00a0mine\u00a0life.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The\u00a0mine\u00a0first\u00a0entered\u00a0commercial production in 2018\u00a0under North American Lithium Inc., which was backed by China\u2019s Tianqi Lithium. However, the operation\u00a0soon\u00a0ran into significant challenges, including plant reliability issues, high operating\u00a0costs\u00a0and\u00a0unfavourable\u00a0lithium prices.\u00a0These pressures\u00a0ultimately\u00a0led\u00a0to its shutdown in 2019 and\u00a0subsequent\u00a0insolvency.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 2021, the asset was\u00a0acquired\u00a0out of bankruptcy by Sayona Mining,\u00a0in a joint venture\u00a0with Piedmont Lithium, forming Sayona Qu\u00e9bec. Following upgrades, the mine was successfully restarted in 2023 and has since resumed production of spodumene concentrate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In August 2025, Sayona Mining and Piedmont Lithium officially merged to form\u00a0Elevra\u00a0Lithium. In addition to NAL,\u00a0Elevra\u00a0holds a 60 per cent interest in the\u00a0Moblan\u00a0lithium project in Quebec\u2019s James Bay region, owns the Carolina Lithium project in the United States and maintains exploration assets in Western Australia’s Pilbara region.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0CGF, formally\u00a0established\u00a0in 2023, is a\u00a0$15 billion\u00a0federal investment fund designed to attract private capital into large-scale Canadian projects, particularly in clean energy, critical\u00a0minerals\u00a0and other strategic industries.\u00a0The\u00a0fund\u00a0aims to attract private investment and help scale projects that are critical to Canada\u2019s economic and industrial strategy\u00a0by reducing\u00a0early-stage risk and improve project viability.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The fund has already committed around\u00a0$116 million\u00a0to support\u00a0Vale Base Metals’ Thompson nickel mine complex in Manitoba and around $113 million in Nouveau Monde Graphite’s Matawinie project in Quebec.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The processing plant at Elevra Lithium\u2019s North American Lithium operation in Quebec. Courtesy of Elevra Lithium. Australia-based\u00a0Elevra\u00a0Lithium\u00a0has received…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43797,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[17,19266,19264,15992,2411,229,6103,383,10307,19263,435,19265,116,241],"class_list":{"0":"post-43796","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-canada","9":"tag-concentrator","10":"tag-expansion","11":"tag-federal","12":"tag-fund","13":"tag-government","14":"tag-growth","15":"tag-investment","16":"tag-lithium","17":"tag-mine","18":"tag-mining","19":"tag-nal","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-quebec"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}