Tesla is reportedly considering buying Brazil-based lithium miner Sigma Lithium, which is currently valued at $3 billion.
With the rapidly rising costs of key minerals for battery production, Tesla has been starting to contemplate venturing into the mining world.
For instance, in response to the rising cost of lithium, CEO Elon Musk said last 12 months that Tesla “might” now get into the lithium mining business regardless that it’s already imagined to be in it.
At Tesla’s Battery Day event in 2020, the automaker announced that it’s entering into the mining business – starting with buying lithium claims on 10,000 acres in Nevada.
Greater than two years later, Tesla has yet to do anything with this claim or a brand new lithium mining technology announced at the identical event.
Nonetheless, the corporate has been going into lithium refining with a brand new plant under construction outside of Corpus Christi, Texas.
To be able to get into the mining business, Tesla has said that it’d actually consider an acquisition, which shouldn’t be something that the corporate often does – especially not on a big scale.
Now a brand new report puts a possible acquisition goal on the map: Sigma Lithium.
Bloomberg reported:
The EV maker run by Elon Musk has been speaking with potential advisers a couple of bid, said the people, who asked to not be identified discussing confidential information. Sigma Lithium is considered one of multiple mining options Tesla is exploring because it mulls its own refining, considered one of the people said.
In line with the report, Sigma lithium’s biggest shareholder, A10 Investimentos, a Brazilian private equity fund, is considering pushing for a sale of the corporate; they’re currently talking to potential bidders, and Tesla is considered one of the businesses that has shown interest.
Sigma declined to comment on the report and claimed it was a rumor.
The corporate’s predominant project is large lithium mining projects inside Minas Gerais State, Brazil, along a corridor known for having large lithium deposits.
It’s still in the event phase, but they’ve achieved pilot-scale production, and so they are moving to industrial exploitation with the goal of manufacturing 766,000 tonnes (104,200 tonnes of LCE) a 12 months.
Sigma Lithium’s stock price has tripled over the past 12 months, making it a harder goal for acquisition. The stock also shot up 24% in aftermarket trading following the report that Tesla is fascinated about acquiring it.