Piedmont Lithium, Tesla ink new deal pivoting from delayed Carolina project  

Piedmont Lithium (Nasdaq: PLL; ASX: PLL) and automaker Tesla agreed to cut their supply agreement by tonnage and time while shifting the source away from a proposed mine stymied by the approvals process.  

Piedmont is to send 125,000 tonnes of spodumene concentrate (SC6) to Tesla over three years (about 41,600 tonnes a year) starting in the second half of this year, according to the agreement announced Tuesday in a news release. There’s an option to extend it for another three years.  

It replaces the September 2020 agreement that would have seen Piedmont supply about 53,300 tonnes a year of SC6 to the automaker for five years if deliveries started in the 12 months following last July.  

The new agreement changes the source to a Quebec project called North America Lithium, which Piedmont bought into in 2021, instead of a US$840 million open-pit project in North Carolina that has yet to secure permits.  

“The electric vehicle and critical battery materials landscape has changed significantly since 2020 and this agreement reflects the importance of – and growing demand for – a North American lithium supply chain,” Piedmont Lithium president and chief executive officer Keith Phillips said in the release.