Turkey has Plenty of Critical Minerals, But a Gap in Value Chain Between Resource and End Product

Highlights

• Turkey analyzes resource potential for critical minerals used in electric car production
• Focus on minerals:
  • Lithium
  • Nickel
  • Cobalt
  • Manganese
  • Graphite
  • Rare earth elements
• The TOGG electric car factory aims to leverage Turkey’s significant mineral resources
• Highlighting potential world-leading lithium reserves
• Key challenge: Developing the value chain between mineral resources and final electric vehicle battery production

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Taskin Deniz Yildiz Adana Alparslan Türkeş Science And Technology University, Department of Mining Engineering recently asked in the review paper, “Will the resource potential of critical raw materials used in electric cars in Turkey be sufficient for the domestic automobile factory?” 

Raising the specter of overdependence on other nations, such as China, for rare earth inputs for critical industries such as electric care vehicle production, the author reports on the opening of a factory in Bursa, a good sized city in northwest Turkey, lying in the foothills of roughly 2,500m-high Mount Uludağ near the Sea of Marmara.

Initiated 29/10/2022 for the production of “TOGG”, an electrically powered domestic automobile in Turkey established by “Turkey’s Automobile Initiative Group” (TOGG), the author raises the question “whether this electric car factory can meet the raw materials it needs in the presence of raw material supply risks worldwide.”

Turkey is in a decent position compared to many other nations, according to the author:

“At this point, it can be considered that the supply from domestic sources gives a raw material supply assurance compared to the foreign supply.”

The Study

In this study, the supply risks of the minerals used in producing electric cars in Turkey were determined, and suggestions were presented to policymakers in this regard.

In this study, only lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese, graphite, and REEs, declared critical in the EU critical raw materials list, have been analyzed in Turkey, considering their potential in the world.

In the analysis, without examining the market of the mentioned minerals, the safety of the raw material supply of the TOGG electric car production factory, which is the only one in Turkey with the potential to supply the world, is discussed from domestic sources in Turkey.

Considering the TOGG factory operating life and the capacity of the Li-battery factory, the author reports, “an evaluation was made on how many EVs the current apparent reserve potential of the raw materials in question would be enough to produce in total.”

“In Turkey, REEpotential and especially Li potential rather than REEs are among the largest resource potentials in the world. It may even be revealed in the future that the Li resource potential in Turkey is the largest in the world.”

Turkey does not have a mineral resource problem in terms of TOGG. Of course, the existence of mineral resources alone makes no sense, however.  Rather, a key challenge is “a large gap in the value chain between the mineral resource and the end product, the i-ion battery, and the EV.”

It should eliminate this gap. For this, it is necessary to develop R&D and process projects, as well as the infrastructure and human resources needed. E.g., C is produced in Turkey. However, production takes.

Lead Research/Investigator

Taskin Deniz Yildiz (opens in a new tab) Adana Alparslan Türkeş Science And Technology University, Department of Mining Engineering