TLG - Talga Group

Eco-innovation from Umeå can break new ground for the mining industry​

basilio said:

Talga is encouraging the moss to grow under its feet..

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"PRESS RELEASE - 30 JANUARY 2024 09:44

Eco-innovation from Umeå can break new ground for the mining industry​

Mining affects ecosystems, topography and vegetation. Now Daniel Pacurar and Boreal Orchards AB are starting a Vinnova- and mining industry-financed project with four large mining companies, VAST AB and SLU.

The goal: Using moss to speed up the restoration of landscapes after mining.
- If it turns out well, it could set a new standard for the mining industry, says project manager Matt Baida, VAST AB.

In May, Daniel Pacurar met for the first time representatives of the mining industry in Luleå at the "Swedish Mining Innovation and Research Day". A little over six months later, he has received a total of SEK 2.8 million, half from Vinnova and half from the participating mining companies for the project "re:moss: Ecological restoration of landscapes after mining with native moss".

Boreal Orchards, the landscape architect agency VAST AB, SLU and the mining companies Boliden, Copperstone Resources, LKAB and Talga participate in the project, which is supported by Swedish Mining Innovation, part of Vinnova's, the Swedish Energy Agency's and Forma's investment in strategic areas of innovation.

The project extends from November 2023 to June 2025, but Daniel, who receives business support from the Umeå Biotech Incubator, has already gotten off to a flying start when he was in Kiruna in September collecting moss. He will now, based on the local moss, produce a moss mixture which will then be applied through "hydroseeding" at two locations, within LKAB's industrial area in Svappavaara and within an area where Talga has carried out trial mining before.

The moss creates a natural basis for restoration
Moss is a component of the biocrust, a protective layer for the soil consisting of small organisms that help the soil stay healthy. It grows on all types of substrates, even stone and rocks, and when the moss attaches to the mining landscape, it creates the conditions for other vegetation to establish itself more quickly and in a natural way.

- The formation of the biocrust is crucial for a successful ecological restoration and moss is a specific and important component in the restoration of the biocrust, says Daniel Pacurar, founder of Boreal Orchards, who explains that the benefits of moss are many.

- Moss creates a first protective layer for the vegetation. It is hardy, does not compete with other vegetation and creates a natural foundation for other plants to build on.

First meeting an aha experience
Landskapsarkitektbyrån VAST AB works with geomorphological design, a design method that takes inspiration from nature to create new landscapes from extraction waste. Matt Baida, CEO of VAST, is project manager for "ReMOSS" describes the first meeting with Daniel Pacurar as an aha experience.

- When Daniel explained what moss can do, it felt obvious, like an eye opener. The mining industry in Sweden is aware of the challenges and is getting better at it, it will be very exciting to see how this works and how other vegetation can establish itself with the moss, says Matt Baida.

The project participant LKAB has high goals regarding biological diversity. For them, sustainable and value-creating finishing is a key to reaching the goals. The vision is to give nature a chance to re-establish itself and then allow, for example, reindeer husbandry and outdoor activities to return to the areas, but LKAB is still looking for tools to reach all the way in the complicated restoration process.

"Extremely important to recreate functional local ecosystems"
- For LKAB, it is extremely important to recreate functional local ecosystems when we leave an area. It's one thing to plant trees but a bit more difficult to get other layers like moss, lichens and rice plants. Establishing an ecosystem from the bottom up with moss feels exciting as it can both help establish vegetation and increase the amount of organic material on barren surfaces, says Camilla Esberg, Development Engineer at LKAB.

Talga is building a battery anode factory in Luleå. To produce their battery anodes, they need graphite, and the company's plans are to extract graphite in its own mine outside Vittangi. The company's plans for anode production are well advanced and for Talga this is an important issue.

- Mining is a temporary land use. It is our responsibility to conduct our business in a sustainable manner. The land will be used for something else in the future and it is our responsibility to prepare for it in the best way possible. Therefore, we have developed a closure plan with guidelines for how we treat the environment in the meantime and how we will do to leave the landscape in good condition afterwards, says Peter French, Environment and Community Manager, at Talga.

Talga sees great potential in the project
Just like the others, he sees many advantages of the moss. In addition to stabilizing the ground and providing conditions for re-established vegetation, Talga also sees an aesthetic perspective.

- When land is mined, regardless of whether it is mining or logging, a different, more sterile, visual impression is created. This project has great potential to use existing materials and technology to help recreate the landscape as the moss lays a green foundation that nature can build on.

THE ARTICLE IN BRIEF
* Daniel Pacurar and Boreal Orchards AB lead a project, financed by Vinnova and the mining industry, to use moss in landscape restoration after mining.
* The "re:moss" project aims to create a biocrust of moss to promote ecological recovery and support other vegetation.
* Local moss is used and it creates a foundation for other plants and contributes to the recovery of the landscape.
* The project involves geomorphological design and may set a new standard for environmentally friendly mining and landscape restoration.
* In addition to UBI-supported Daniel Pacurar, the landscape architect agency VAST AB, SLU and the mining companies Boliden, Copperstone Resources, LKAB and Talga are included in the project."

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mullokintyre said:

Good for Swededen.
Unfortunately, for the majority of Australian based mines, growing moss is going to be tad difficult in those hot dry climes of WA.
Mick

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Webinar Highlights​

There were many great topics covered, but these were the parts that stood out the most to me. It’s a mixture of paraphrasing and direct quotes.

Mark noted the difficult macro conditions for the battery sector with lithium’s collapse and negative media coverage but stated that Talga’s side of things “are frankly very good.”

He stated that he’s not in Stockholm for a conference but “we actually have car companies here, we have customers here, there are politicians here and policy makers from Europe, so doing a whole bunch of things.”

“One thing the outside world is not being reminded much of is, we’re not actually a one project company, we’re actually developing a whole range of battery materials. There’s diversity to our products, different technologies, different markets. All being developed parallel. Of course our main project is Vittangi, which is a mine to battery project here in north Sweden, which is drawing very close. But do not forget we are exposing ourselves to many other parts of the market as well that is growing in electrification. The growth rates may change a little up and down, but overall is still growing really strongly. Just a reminder that your company, if you’re a shareholder, is not just about a single project, it's created a lot of value that’s probably on the verge of coming out in various ways.”

“The big thing was in the last quarter, the news that the Chinese were looking at export restrictions from December 1, that news was announced in October, the day after it was announced, I had to fly to a different country every single day meeting auto makers. For the first time we’re seeing auto OEMs much more interested in anode supply chains, than the cell makers ever were.”

"What this news from China did was, the end users realised that they were much more exposed than they thought. It wasn’t the fact that China have exported restrictions to zero, it’s that they suddenly realised that, particularly on the graphite side, they hadn’t been paying attention and that they had to do something about it strategically. We’re now inundated with site visits and interests not just from within Europe, but in America as well. To be honest it’s been fantastic for business. It essentially did a lot of the heavy lifting that we’ve been talking to these customers about for a long time, and now they’ve got an accelerated attitude towards these things. The localisation of supply chains is no longer theoretical, the increase in deglobalisation, a much harsher geopolitical landscape, it’s not going back to what it was before where you can import disinflation from China. Everyone is realising that if you don’t have your own thing, you will possibly come to an end.”

Mark also goes on to state how the EU must protect their automotive industry and why the destruction of the automotive industry would be far worse than what happened to the solar panel industry.

“The difference is you’ve already got millions of people employed in the industry, been going for a hundred years in countries like Germany and France, so they’ve got a lot more to protect. They’ve got billions of dollars of debt in pension fund payments for all these workers, they’ve got a much higher level of investment that they’re trying to protect. Its a different motivation, otherwise you could just say sure, cheap BYDs come on in. There is a fight they’re looking at having to support their industries, whether that’s through tariffs, going against free trade principles, whether it’s through increasing subsidies to local providers, either way it’s supportive of what Talga’s doing, which is setting up a non-Asian replacement of Asian battery supply chains.

For us internally, business has never been better. Fundamentals of the interest from where the customers are at has expanded from cell making and going beyond to the autos, the final customers who were happy just to let the cell makers do whatever they want, now actually strategically the auto OEMs are much more concerned about it now. “

“Customer off takes, some of them have already been advanced as far as they can go, and they’re waiting on some of the things around the project, new ones are continuously underway. The customers you have visibility on are not the only customers, that’s for sure. There's a whole heap and that’s accelerating after these recent events."

Mark mentions that the company had hoped that the appeals decision would have wrapped up by Christmas, that hasn’t happened yet but states that it is getting very very close. Says that we have reason to be confident that it is nearby.

“We don’t get official detailed information before the announcement is made publicly. Certainly from working with policy makers and local politicians and people within government here, everyone is confident and with fingers crossed.” He mentions that if the appeals go against the company, they can still apply for an execution order and potentially start the project anyway.

On the financing of the project, which I was most happy about. Note the talk about project finance, not equity in the company as well as strategic partners with prepayment purchase agreements.

“We’ve stated our target for 60% debt funding and 40% equity for a long time now. What people, particularly research analysts have to do, is they say well I don’t know where the 40% equity is, but I guess you’re going to issue shares for it and that’s going to be hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, and of course, we say no that’s not the case.

We have a whole range of options. For example, there are EU and different member state grants and state aid available. Now you would think we would be applying for these, and we are, but unlike the American system where you talk about it from the beginning, in Europe you can’t actually talk about it until the end. So when they’re fully approved and granted, but during the process you’re not allowed to say how much you’ve applied for and who with.

We’ve got pretty good chances, you would imagine. We’re a critical mineral, Critical Raw Materials Act has just come out, it’s going into force in the next few months. As part of that they designate strategic projects for Europe, which can also facilitate access to various funds.

Essentially if you look at our package, the equity component of financing the project can be broken down into as much aid as you can get from somewhere else. There’s Australian companies, they get up to $200m in some sort of aid from either the Australian or US government. We haven’t done that yet, you haven’t heard us because you can’t talk about it until it’s finished. But of course those things are underway with us to decrease any other funding requirement on the equity side.

Then what’s left? You’ve got two things to do. Number one you could pay for it yourself if the shares are $5 and it’s not going to hurt you too much in the company’s dilution. But times are not like that, so you look at strategic partners. What does that mean? Pre-payments or off takes. Strategic investment, not necessarily into the company, but into the project by a player or an actor, that can help continue to decrease your funding requirements going forward.

Times are tough, but that’s okay. We are asset rich. We have many things to sell and work with, with various partners. It’s not even in the project, there are other parts of the business as well. The lithium discoveries, the cobalt deposits, quarter of a billion tons of iron ore in resources, copper projects including resources. Then of course silicon and other battery technologies, that separately can also attract state aid aid strategic investors and who’s money could essentially be paying for parts of the company and forming part of that equity. We don’t sit around in corporate-land thinking about just dashing shares away. We’re under no pressure, we have options and time. The point is, there’s a whole bunch of solutions. It isn’t that we’re going to issue a quarter of a billion dollars of shares for equity.”

On the new members of the team:

Per-Inge Kruse is heading up business development and strategic alliance. “He’s ripping into that at a rate of knots, I can tell you. We’ve been on the road already and we’re hitting the road again this weekend for a very exciting trip to some customers while here.”

Eva Nordmark, Mark says she’s very well connected and interested in the nation building part of what Talga is doing as well as the environment cleanup part.

For those that are thinking that a positive appeals decision will be brushed off by the market or the current shorts with 17.2m shorted, Mark once again stated that the finalisation of the permit “allows for the finalisation of the finance and the off takes, basically. Plus we’re looking at off takes for other products from silicon, to underwrite those things as well. We’ve obviously got a bigger focus on strategic partners now and government funding. So both of those things will be coming out as well.”

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mullokintyre said:

Good for Swededen

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basilio said:

their mine is in Sweden

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basilio said:

There you are folks. Mark Thompson making it clear that Talga is a force to be reckoned with in Swededen

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• Coordination and oversight of technical disciplines and relevant project stakeholders to define project specifications and ensure technical project execution
• Technical representation for internal stakeholders, contractors and suppliers
• Oversee Talgas' HSE, quality policy and contractual commitments
• Cost saving initiatives by proposing optimized technical solutions
• Risk and change management, scheduling and execution, budget compliance

basilio said:

Anyone interested in heading Far Far North ? Talga is looking for The Man ( Or Woman) to be Engineering Manager for construction of the Anode plant.
Interestingly enough there is a multitude of mining/engineering projects being developed in this far north region of Sweden

Found on TheStockExchange website

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Do you have experience in large, multidisciplinary projects in industry or critical infrastructure? Are you attracted by the opportunity to work in a key position where you get a great opportunity to be involved and influence. Do you thrive best in a fast-moving, entrepreneurial and international context? Then maybe the role of Engineer Manager is something for you!

Join us and write history together with Talga where your contribution makes a difference and where you become part of the journey towards enabling the world's most sustainable batteries and consumer products.

About the service

Talga has been established in Luleå for a number of years, today there is an innovation and pilot plant where lab tests are carried out while waiting for the establishment of the factory which is planned to be ready within the next few years. The factory will be unique in its kind and will be able to supply 19,500 tons of finished anode material annually, enabling the production of 400,000 electric cars.

As Engineering Manager, you will be responsible for overseeing all technical aspects of projects, to ensure the design is delivered and commissioned. In addition, the Engineering Manager will be responsible for coordinating communication and collaboration between engineering disciplines, as well as with construction, procurement and contractors.

The Engineering Manager will ensure product quality and that the approved technical designs meet the required standards and specifications. This also means evaluation and procurement of suppliers.

Examples of tasks:

• Coordination and oversight of technical disciplines and relevant project stakeholders to define project specifications and ensure technical project execution
• Technical representation for internal stakeholders, contractors and suppliers
• Oversee Talgas' HSE, quality policy and contractual commitments
• Cost saving initiatives by proposing optimized technical solutions
• Risk and change management, scheduling and execution, budget compliance

The service includes travel both within Sweden and Europe. The position starts from the office in Luleå and reports to the Head of Project.

Is this you?

To succeed in the role, you have experience from a multidisciplinary role from critical buildings or in industrial projects, preferably large projects. As experience from the process industry is highly meritorious, this is highly valued. It is advantageous if you have experience from a leading position. It is also advantageous if you have a higher education with a focus on technology.

You express yourself freely in English and Swedish.

We attach great importance to your personal qualities, you are a driven, initiative and self-motivated person with a good ability to prioritize, organize and complete. Furthermore, you are a relationship builder who thrives on meeting new people and cultures. You are a flexible person who thrives in a fast-moving, entrepreneurial and international environment.

Do you want to know more?

In this recruitment, Talga collaborates with Level Recruitment. Please apply for the position by clicking the "apply" button next to this. If you have any questions, please contact recruitment consultant Louisa Torstensson on 08-120 50 423. The selection of applications takes place continuously. Welcome with your application!

Keywords: installation, project manager, design, technical manager, supplier assurance, quality"

https://jobb.nyteknik.se/jobs/306445049-engineer-manager-via-talga

Sweden, home of TLGs graphite mine(s)

I found it in a roundabout way. Reminds me of the green party and its desire to close Cementa, i.e. no more concrete. Some argued at the time that it should be built with recycled materials and wood. From the Lulean Facebook page: from the QR 4/23 Subsequent to the quarter, stage...

thestockexchange.com.au

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mullokintyre said:

No thanks. In my early 20's I was foolish enough to Travel to the northern parts of Sweden in January, smack in the middle of the Northern winter. ..Never been so cold in my life. The whole living in the snow thing sucks from my perspective.
mick

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mullokintyre said:

The only thing i remember is how to order Grilled Korv och pommes frittes.
Mick

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