Interview on TV 2/216 Aug 2024 07:05
Just to give you an idea, the total investment in the opening of the mine, the construction of the processing plant, and other infrastructure should reach tens of billions of crowns. And on the other hand, the price of lithium itself has been falling quite a bit recently, last year alone it was by 80%, so some cheaper financing would significantly help reduce those costs. Vladimír Kroc, moderator -------------------- Already last year, Prime Minister Petr Fiala described lithium mining as a strategic project, stating that it would start as early as the end of 2026. It is still realistic? Jana Klímová, analyst -------------------- That term is constantly shifting. Originally, after ČEZ joined Geomet, the head of this company, Daniel Beneš, talked about the fact that mining could start as early as 2025. So last year, the prime minister talked about 2026, the end of the year, and now we are at the point where the head of Geomet Mr. Štěpánek says that he sees the year 2028 as real, those reasons. There are more of these delays, but recently the feasibility study, which is almost finished, has actually started to be recalculated, so what will the costs be, due to the fact that the municipalities in Teplicka, near the lithium deposit, rejected the construction of the processing plant, so it has to build in the much more distant Prunéřov, which will mean additional costs, so now a new study is being prepared and it will not be ready until the second half of next year, and only then will it be decided what to do next. Vladimír Kroc, moderator -------------------- And can we expect a turnaround in lithium prices? Will the project, which, for example, according to the head of the ANO movement Andrej Babiš, was supposed to bring two trillion crowns to the economy, even make sense in the future? Jana Klímová, analyst -------------------- So far, Geomet and the Ministry of Industry and Trade are optimistic. According to them, estimates are that it will break around 2030, and as the transition of economies from coal and oil to green sources progresses, there will be a large increase in electromobility and also the need for those batteries in general, so demand will increase and, above all, the price of lithium and the project should also be helped by the fact that it is planned to increase the mining there, more than what was previously expected. Otherwise, when you mentioned the two trillion crowns from lithium that Andrej Babiš even put on billboards in the election campaign in 2017, as if it were Czech money that would come here thanks to mining, it was considered nonsense. Even then, earlier preliminary studies indicated a potential profit of around 50 billion over 20 years of total mining, and that was before prices crashed. Vladimír Kroc, moderator -------------------- Chief economic analyst of Czech Radio Jana Klímová. Thank you, see you soon. Jana Klímová, analyst -------------
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