Canada’s electric vehicle (EV) holdouts are digging in their heels, with That’s according to Study,SM released today, which finds that Overall consumer EV consideration in Canada has declined 13 percentage points to 34% from 47% in 2022, and significantly lags EV consideration rates in the US where 61% of consumers... Read more →

Volvo Group’s Nova Bus is ending bus production in the US market; the company has decided to close its Plattsburgh manufacturing and delivery facility by 2025. Production in North America will be in its Canadian facilities located in Saint-Eustache and Saint-François-du-Lac (Québec) and Nova Bus will continue its successful Canadian... Read more →

FedEx Express Canada welcomed its first 50 BrightDrop Zevo 600 electric delivery vehicles at an event in Toronto. The introduction of BrightDrop’s electric vans into the FedEx fleet in Canada is an important step in the company’s goal to transform its entire parcel pickup and delivery (PUD) fleet to all-electric,... Read more →

Rio Tinto will invest $1.1 billion (CAN$1.4 billion) to expand its AP60 (earlier post) aluminum smelter equipped with low-carbon technology at Complexe Jonquière in Canada. The total investment includes up to $113 million (CAN$150 million) of financial support from the Québec government. This expansion, which will coincide with the gradual... Read more →

Li-Metal Corp., a developer of lithium metal and lithium metal anode technologies for next-generation batteries (earlier post), has been awarded more than C$1.4 million in grant funding from various programs sponsored by the Government of Ontario to develop and commercialize its lithium metal production technology. The funding consists of a... Read more →

Port of Argentia Inc. (Nefoundland, Canada) reached a binding agreement on commercial terms with Pattern Renewable Holdings Canada 2 ULC (Pattern Energy) for a planned renewable energy to green fuels project at Argentia. Argentia Capital Inc. (ACI), the Port’s 50/50 partnership with Torrent Capital Ltd., is a signatory to the... Read more →

The Government of Canada announced support for the latest cathode active materials (CAM) facility to be operational in Canada, to be built by a joint venture between General Motors (GM) and POSCO Future M in Bécancour, Québec (earlier post). CAM are key battery materials that consist of components such as... Read more →

Higher crude prices and continued optimization improvements have driven the first upward revision to the S&P; Global Commodity Insights 10-year oil sands production outlook in more than half a decade. The new forecast, produced by the S&P; Global Commodity Insights Oil Sands Dialogue, expects Canadian oil sands production to reach... Read more →

LG Energy Solution and Green Technology Metals Limited (GT1), an Australia-based, North America-focused multi-asset lithium business, signed an equity subscription agreement and an offtake term sheet in relation to future production from GT1’s flagship Seymour Project in North America. (Earlier post.) GT1’s main 100%-owned Ontario Lithium Projects comprise high-grade, hard... Read more →

Li-Metal Corp., a developer of lithium metal and lithium metal anode technologies, has successfully produced its first lithium metal at its lithium metal piloting facility in Markham, Ontario. Domestic lithium metal production capacity is essential for the development of a sustainable supply chain for next-generation batteries. Li-Metal’s successful demonstration of... Read more →

Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) and Global First Power (GFP) announced that GFP has selected a location at the Chalk River Laboratories to site its proposed Micro-Modular Reactor (MMR) project. GFP is proposing to construct and operate a 15 megawatt thermal (MWth) (approximately 5 MW... Read more →

Raven SR, a renewable fuels company (earlier post), and Cap Clean Energy, a clean energy development company headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to co-develop biofuels facilities in Canada to produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and renewable diesel (RD) for the heavy duty transport sector. The... Read more →

The Volkswagen Group’s battery company PowerCo SE aims to build its largest gigafactory to date in St. Thomas, Ontario/Canada with an annual production capacity of up to 90 GWh in the final expansion phase. The planned investment of up to €4.8 billion / CAD$ 7 billion until 2030 has the... Read more →

Coca-Cola Canada Bottling Limited is acquiring six Volvo VNR Electric trucks, as part of a pilot program to service its customer delivery routes throughout the Greater Montreal Area. The six trucks are the first Class 8 battery-electric trucks in the beverage distributor’s fleet of 650 heavy-duty vehicles to service customers... Read more →

Ford Motor Company is investing C$1.8 billion (US$1.3 billion) in its Oakville Assembly Complex to transform it into a high-volume hub of electric vehicle manufacturing in Canada. The campus, to be renamed Oakville Electric Vehicle Complex, will begin to retool and modernize in the second quarter of 2024 to prepare... Read more →

The Volkswagen Group and its battery company PowerCo have selected St. Thomas in Ontario, Canada to establish Volkswagen’s first overseas gigafactory for cell manufacturing. The plant will produce sustainable unified cells, with start of production planned for 2027. The decision to expand the PowerCo cell production ramp-up from Europe to... Read more →

The Government of Canada will award more than $344 million in funding to suport five new critical minerals programs and initiatives. The five are: Critical Minerals Technology and Innovation Program. $144.4 million for the research, development, demonstration, commercialization and adoption of new technologies and processes that support sustainable growth in... Read more →

Canadaa-based Electra Battery Materials Corporation announced an updated mineral resource estimate (2023 MRE) for its Iron Creek Cobalt-Copper Project located in the Idaho Cobalt Belt, a 34-mile-long formation containing some of the largest primary cobalt deposits in North America, that paves the way for additional exploration activities and development of... Read more →

Purolator, Canada’s leading integrated freight, package and logistics solutions provider, expects to invest approximately $1 billion to electrify its Canadian network over the next seven years. This includes a plan to purchase more than 3,500 fully electric last-mile delivery vehicles and the electrification of more than 60 terminals across Canada.... Read more →

Australia-based Green Technology Metals Limited (GT1), a Canadian-focused multi-asset lithium business, signed a binding option agreement to purchase an 80% interest in the Junior Lake Project from Landore Resources Canada, which comprises 591 staked mineral claims on 10,856 Hectares (109km2) of tenure located adjacent to the Flagship Seymour Project (Seymour)... Read more →

The Government of Canada will refuse to permit seabed mining absent a rigorous regulatory regime. Jonathan Wilkinson, Minister of Natural Resources, and Joyce Murray, Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, released a statement confirming Canada’s position: Canada does not currently have a domestic legal framework that would... Read more →

The Government of Canada announced federal investments totalling nearly $15 million (US$11.2 million) for the installation of more than 2,350 EV chargers, 2,100 of which will be installed across the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). This funding was provided to 32 organizations, including municipalities, multi-resident buildings (MURBs), private firms and utilities.... Read more →

Canada-based Volt Carbon Technologies has announced the acquisition by staking of a 100% owned Abamasagi Lake Lithium Project, located northwest of Nakina, Ontario, Canada. The mining claims were registered directly by Volt Carbon. The staking was completed following a detailed review of several publicly available Ontario Government geological databases and... Read more →

GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH), Ontario Power Generation (OPG), SNC-Lavalin and Aecon have signed a contract for the deployment of a BWRX-300 small modular reactor (SMR) at OPG’s Darlington New Nuclear Project site. This is the first commercial contract for a grid-scale SMR in North America. The BWRX-300 is a... Read more →

ExxonMobil’s majority-owned affiliate Imperial Oil will invest about $720 million (US$560 million) to move forward with construction of the largest renewable diesel facility in the country. (Earlier post.) The project at Imperial’s Strathcona refinery near Edmonton is expected to produce more than one billion liters of renewable diesel annually—about 20,000... Read more →

Graphex Technologies LLC, the US subsidiary of Graphex Group Limited, and Northern Graphite Corporation announced that Graphex will participate in Northern’s previously announced selection process for a site suitable for the construction of a large-scale graphite processing facility in Baie-Comeau, approximately 420 km north-east of Québec City. The plant is... Read more →

NFI Group subsidiary New Flyer Industries Canada ULC has received new firm orders for 16 battery-electric and fuel cell-electric transit buses from Winnipeg Transit. The contract also has options to be extended for up to four years to purchase up to 150 40-foot zero-emission buses (ZEBs). In total, NFI will... Read more →

The Government of Canada on Friday released its Critical Minerals Strategy , backed by up to $3.8 billion in federal funding allocated in Budget 2022. (Earlier post.) The proposed funding covers a range of industrial activities, from geoscience and exploration to mineral processing, manufacturing and recycling applications, including support for... Read more →

General Motors has opened Canada’s first full-scale electric-vehicle manufacturing plant in Ontario. With investment support from both the Canadian and Ontario governments, GM has completely retooled the CAMI Assembly plant as the new global manufacturing home of BrightDrop’s fully electric delivery vans. BrightDrop also announced the commencement of commercial operations... Read more →

Volkswagen CEO Oliver Blume and the Canadian Minister for Innovation, Science and Industry, François-Philippe Champagne, signed an Addendum to the non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) of August this year (earlier post) to identify suitable sites for a cell factory in Canada. The two parties will continue their cooperation in the... Read more →

The Canadian federal and provincial governments will award approximately $475 million (CAD) (US$357 million) in project funding for Air Products’ multi-billion-dollar landmark net-zero blue hydrogen energy complex in Alberta. (Earlier post.) The facility, already being executed, will make Edmonton, Alberta the center of western Canada’s hydrogen economy and set the... Read more →

Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL), Canada’s premier nuclear science and technology organization, and General Fusion have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to pursue a series of joint projects to accelerate the deployment of commercial fusion power in Canada. Fusion energy holds great potential as a clean and reliable form of... Read more →

The Government of Canada has ordered three Chinese companies to divest from three Canadian critical mineral companies: Power Metals, Lithium Chile, and Ultra Lithium. (Earlier post.) Ultra Lithium has now issued a statement noting that the company has been advised that Zangge Mining Investment (Chengdu) Co. Ltd. (Zangge) received the... Read more →

The Government of Canada has ordered the divestiture of the following investments by three Chinese companies in Canadian critical mineral companies: Sinomine (Hong Kong) Rare Metals Resources Co., Limited is required to divest itself of its investment in Power Metals Corp. Power Metals Corp is a Canadaian mining company exploring... Read more →

To support the expansion of electric transportation in Québec, the Electric Circuit is a{launching} a pilot project on heavy- and medium-duty vehicle charging. The initiative includes the installation of dedicated stations for safe charging that consider turning radius and trailer length. With the number of electric trucks on the roads... Read more →

Canada-based Nouveau Monde Graphite Inc. (NMG) and Panasonic Energy entered into a Framework Agreement establishing the terms of the commercial relationship between the parties to enable the next development steps of NMG’s ore-to-battery-market integrated graphite project in Québec, Canada. The strategic transaction comprises a non-binding memorandum of understanding on an... Read more →

Rio Tinto is partnering with the Government of Canada to invest up to C$737 million (US$537 million) over the next eight years to decarbonize its Rio Tinto Fer et Titane (RTFT) operations in Sorel-Tracy, Québec, and to position the business as a center of excellence for critical minerals processing. The... Read more →

Westinghouse Electric Company has signed a service agreement with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission to bring its eVinci microreactor closer to commercialization. The agreement initiates a Vendor Design Review (VDR) which is a pre-licensing technical assessment of the eVinci small modular reactor design. Westinghouse will execute both Phases 1 and... Read more →

LG Energy Solution (LGES) signed separate partnership agreements with three major critical mineral suppliers in Canada. The latest arrangements to secure lithium and cobalt from Snow Lake Resources Ltd., Electra Battery Materials Corporation and Avalon Advanced Materials Inc. are in line with LG Energy Solution’s strategic vision to reinforce its... Read more →

Volkswagen Group (Volkswagen AG) and the Government of Canada signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to promote e-mobility in the country and to explore opportunities across Canada’s automotive and battery supply chain. Both parties will investigate opportunities for Canada to contribute to Volkswagen’s global and regional battery supply chains. PowerCo,... Read more →

Mercedes-Benz Group AG and the Government of Canada signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to promote cooperation and to explore ways to advance opportunities across Canada’s electric vehicle supply chain, including, but not limited to, securing sustainable sources of raw materials. As part of Mercedes-Benz’s Ambition2039, the focus is on... Read more →

Umicore plans to construct a manufacturing facility for cathode active battery materials (CAM) and their precursor materials (pCAM) in Ontario, Canada. For Umicore this investment represents the final step in establishing a global production presence with battery material value chains that are regionally fully integrated to support its customers in... Read more →

Rio Tinto is investing US$188 million to increase the production capacity for low-carbon, high value aluminum billets at its Alma smelter in Lac-Saint-Jean, Québec by 202,000 metric tonnes. The Saguenay – Lac-Saint-Jean region in Canada is an important hub for Rio Tinto’s aluminum business, responsible for close to half of... Read more →

Canada-based Moment Energy, a start-up created by four Simon Fraser University alumni, has established a supply agreement with Mercedes-Benz Energy (MBE) for second-life electric vehicle batteries. This marks the first agreement Mercedes-Benz Energy has signed with a North American second-life energy storage system (ESS) provider. Together with Moment Energy we... Read more →

A partnership between FortisBC Energy Inc., Suncor Energy and Australia-based Hazer Group Limited will use Hazer’s innovative methane pyrolysis technology for the first time in North America to produce hydrogen from natural gas. The project, located at Suncor’s Burrard Terminal site, will produce hydrogen while storing the carbon byproduct as... Read more →

Canada will publish the final Clean Fuel Regulations (CFR) in the Canada Gazette Part II on 6 July 2022. The CFR set increasingly stringent requirements on producers and importers to reduce the carbon intensity of gasoline and diesel. Once fully implemented, the CFR will help cut up to 26.6 million... Read more →

Imperial Oil Limited—Canada’s largest petroleum refiner, a major producer of crude oil, a key petrochemical producer and a leading fuels marketer—and E3 Lithium are collaborating to advance a direct-lithium-extraction pilot in Alberta, exploring the redevelopment of an historic oil field into a potential new leading source of lithium for Canada’s... Read more →

Canada Post has earmarked $1 billion to cut emissions and transform its fleet. With nearly 14,000 vehicles and Canada’s largest retail network of close to 6,000 post offices, Canada Post acknowledges its footprint is significant. The Corporation will transform its fleet to non-emitting transportation, with commitments to reach a 50%... Read more →

bp has agreed to sell its 50% interest in the Sunrise oil sands project in Alberta, Canada, to Calgary-based Cenovus Energy, the other owner of the Sunrise project. As part of the deal, bp is acquiring Cenovus’s interest in the Bay du Nord project in Eastern Canada, adding to its... Read more →

Cresta Funds Management (Cresta) has chosen Topsoe’s HydroFlex solution for revamping the Braya Renewable Fuels refinery (Braya) in Newfoundland, Canada. The refinery will produce up to 18,000 barrels per day of Renewable Diesel and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) initially; the capacity will increase further in various stages of expansion. The... Read more →