(Paris) France signed two bilateral agreements on Wednesday with Canada and Australia to “secure” its supplies of critical metals, essential for the energy transition and the reduction of its CO2 emissions, announced the French Ministry of Transition energy.
These two agreements “aim to develop the critical minerals sectors, including extraction, processing and recycling projects, and to promote cooperation,” the ministry said in a press release.
The signing of these two agreements, on the eve of the first summit of the International Energy Agency (IEA) devoted to these resources, “is a further step towards securing our supplies of critical minerals”, estimated the Minister of Energy Transition Agnès Pannier-Runacher, quoted in the press release.
She recalled the launch in May of an investment fund of two billion euros (2.86 billion Canadian dollars) to facilitate France’s access to these resources used in particular to supply the four giga-factories of batteries under construction in the country, or to connect future offshore wind farms.
Another critical mineral, while France has relaunched the construction of nuclear power plants: uranium.
While Canada is now the third largest supplier to the EU, behind Kazakhstan and Niger, exports from this coup-plagued African country may “not be as significant in the years to come », underlined Mr. Wilkinson, who sees his country continuing to progress in the hierarchy of suppliers to Europe.
The agreements signed on Wednesday are “not commercial agreements which will secure a given volume of supply contracts for such or such metals,” the French ministry clarified.
“It is a question of developing these critical mineral sectors in terms of extraction, processing, recycling, of promoting industrial and university cooperation in terms of research and development”, between French companies and these two countries which have the same social and environmental standards, the same source added.
This “strategic framework” concerns “all minerals and that includes uranium”, specified the minister’s office, while in parallel with the IEA summit in Paris, France is also organizing Thursday with the OECD another international conference, on nuclear power.