A $923 million processing facility employing 250 people in Bécancour. Another $481 million with 150 employees in Saint-Michel-des-Saints. An agreement with Panasonic. Éric Desaulniers is electrifying Quebec’s drum industry with his projects.
“We have no choice but to build big factories. Companies don’t want to have eight different suppliers. Usually they want three. You have to be in the top three,” Éric Desaulniers, founder and CEO of Nouveau Monde Graphite, told the Journal.
“We have the two most advanced and largest graphite mining projects in North America, so it’s certain that Chinese interests are watching,” he adds.
Éric Desaulniers, geologist and manager of these strategic projects, has been thinking big since his discovery of a deposit in Saint-Michel-des-Saints in 2015.
He pursued his ambitions with the company Nouveau Monde Graphite, of which the largest shareholder is the British company Pallinghurst (20%) and the government of Quebec is the second shareholder. The Caisse de dépôt is one of its shareholders, Éric Desaulniers recalls.
Appeal to the Workers
Speaking at the Cercle canadien last week, Éric Desaulniers appealed to workers from Quebec who had emigrated to earn a living in the West to come back home to help Quebec build our booming factories here.
“There are at least five or six large projects in Quebec, except there aren’t many workers and contractors who could supply that many large industrial projects,” he explained.
If it manages to build its factories as planned, Nouveau Monde Graphite will have a lead over its Asian rivals in battery manufacturing.
“No component has to come from China if you want to receive the subsidies with the Inflation Reduction Act from 2024. It is important. “That’s our biggest advantage,” he says.
Advantage Quebec
Therefore, cellulators have no choice but to source graphite from a strategic United States partner such as Canada. This is where Quebec needs to dive.
A sign that the issue is vital is the fact that the US Department of Defense is even investing in Canadian mining companies to hold its own against China.
But not everyone is as enthusiastic as Éric Desaulniers. In Saint-Michel-des-Saints, in the RCM of Matawinie, his thirst for resources is not for everyone.
Last year, a Radio-Canada report reported on the fears of opponents who feared their part of the country was becoming “an open sewer”.