Frontier Lithium has announced a partnership with Mitsubishi Corporation that will see the companies invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the construction of a first-of-its-kind lithium refinery in Thunder Bay.

The companies announced the deal on March 4. The agreement sees Mitsubishi will acquire an initial 7.5% interest in the project for $25 million. That share could rise as high as 25% on completion of the project’s feasibility study.

The Ontario government praised the announcement, saying it would create hundreds of new, full-time jobs and support Ontario’s emerging end-to-end critical mineral supply chain.

“Our government is working with Frontier Lithium and the federal government to protect Ontario workers and jobs by mining and refining our critical minerals right here in Ontario,” said Vic Fedeli, Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade. “Frontier Lithium’s interest in expanding their production of strategic minerals in Ontario is yet another vote of confidence in Ontario’s workers and business environment.”

Frontier Lithium is working with the provincial and federal governments towards an agreement that would, subject to final conditions, see the company develop and operate a lithium chemicals conversion facility in Thunder Bay.

The facility would be part of Frontier Lithium’s PAK Lithium Project, which aims to be the first fully integrated lithium development initiative in Canada and will be an important part of the province’s developing made-in-Ontario critical mineral supply chain.

Frontier aims to become a domestic supplier of battery-grade lithium chemicals for the growing EV battery and energy storage markets in North America.

“Today marks a significant milestone for Frontier Lithium as we progress towards our goal of becoming a key lithium supplier to the North American EV battery materials supply chain,” said President and CEO Trevor Walker. “We are grateful for the confidence the federal and provincial governments have placed in this vision and for their intent to support the development of fully integrated operations in Northern Ontario – from mining ore at our PAK lithium project in Northwestern Ontario to producing lithium salts at our proposed conversion facility in Thunder Bay."

Ontario has significant deposits of lithium, which is a strategically important material in the global electric vehicle battery market. In fact, lithium demand is projected to increase 500 per cent by 2050 due to the growing domestic battery manufacturing and future-oriented transportation ecosystem.

Frontier has already received up to $6.1 million in conditionally approved funding under the federal government’s Critical Minerals Infrastructure Fund for two projects to advance Indigenous engagement and engineering; one is for a 56 km all-season road and the other for electricity infrastructure.