FTEL:CC - First Tellurium Reports on Two Major Publications Highlighting Supply Issues for Tellurium and Other Critical Metals

(TheNewswire)

Fraser Institute projects telluriumrequirements could increase 800% by 2030.

Vancouver, BC - TheNewswire - Dec 6, 2023 - First Tellurium Corp. (CSE: FTEL ) ( OTC: FSTTF ), reports thatrecent reports from TheFinancial Times of London and Canada’s FraserInstitute highlight rapidly-growing supply issues around criticalmetals, especially tellurium. The Fraser Institute, predicting“exponential growth” in demand for electric vehicle batteries,forecast that supply requirements for tellurium could increase by over800% by 2030.

in a December 1, 2023 article, the Financial Times reported on the Biden administration’s new restrictions onChinese-made battery components for electric vehicles. BeginningJanuary 1, 2024, no US-manufactured EVs that include Chinese-madebattery components will be eligible for the full subsidies offeredunder President Biden’s $369-billion Inflation Reduction Act.

John Podesta, Biden’s top clean energy advisor,stated, “With this guidance and the clarity that it will provide,we’re ensuring that the US electric vehicle future will be made inAmerica.”

The rules will force EV and battery manufacturers tosource far more critical metals from domestic sources. China currentlyaccounts for almost two-thirds of the world’s lithium processingcapacity, 75% of its cobalt capacity, and nearly 60% of itstellurium processing capacity.

“The new rules open up significant opportunities forus,” said First Tellurium President and CEO Tyrone Docherty.“Revolutionary new EV batteries, using domestically sourcedtellurium, could greatly increase the need to source tellurium fromCanada and the U.S. Add this to the forty percent of global telluriumalready used by the solar industry, a figure that’s expected to growsignificantly according to S&PGlobal , and you can see how thesupply crunch is adding up.”

As reported by First Tellurium in March2023 and also in 2022 , new solid state,lithium-tellurium (LiTe) batteries are under development by FirstTellurium strategic partner Fenix AdvancedMaterials and the University ofBritish Columbia Okanagan (UBCO). Fenix reports the batteries aresignificantly more efficient and safer than current lithium-ionbatteries, offering far higher charging capacities, much smaller sizeand a life up to 400% that of lithium-ion batteries.

If widely adopted, LiTe batteries would put furtherstrain on tellurium supplies, both foreign and domestic. A new reportby the Fraser Institute, titled CanMetal Mining Match the Speed of the Planned Electric VehicleTransition? stated: “Barringbreakthrough developments in battery technology, this massive andrapid expansion of battery-electric vehicle production will require acorrespondingly massive and rapid expansion of the mining and refiningof the metals and rare earth elements critical to battery-electricvehicle technology.” As noted above, the institute projects requiredgrowth of over 800% in the supply of tellurium.

“Clearly, North America will need huge increases indomestic sources of critical metals, especially tellurium,” saidDocherty. “Current domestic sources of tellurium, almost entirelyfrom copper refining, will not come close to meeting that demand,especially with the growth of cadmium-tellurium solarpanels.”

Docherty emphasized that First Tellurium, with itshigh-grade sources of tellurium in both British Columbia and Colorado,sits in a strong strategic position as the supply crunch unfolds.“Our strength comes not only from our tellurium resources, but fromthe fact that in both BC and Colorado, our tellurium lies within resources of high-grade preciousmetals. This makes the tellurium far more economic to produce. The PEA from our DeerHorn property in BC emphasizes thispoint.”

Added Docherty, “There are very fewtellurium-specific properties in North America to begin with. Butwithout the added benefit of other economic minerals, it’s highlyunlikely they could produce tellurium economically on itsown.”

About First Tellurium Corp.

First Tellurium’s unique business model is togenerate revenue and value through mineral discovery, projectdevelopment, project generation and cooperative access to untappedmineral regions in Indigenous territory with sustainableexploration.

Our Klondike tellurium-gold property in Colorado andpolymetallic Deer Horn Project in British Columbia anchor adiversified search for metals, working in alliance with Indigenouspeoples, NGOs, governments and leading metals buyers. This is thefuture of mineral exploration—generating revenue by exploringresponsibly and leveraging diverse partnerships.

First Tellurium proudly adheres to, and supports, theprinciples and rights set out in the United Nations Declaration on theRights of Indigenous Peoples and in particular the fundamentalproposition of free, prior and informed consent. First Tellurium islisted on the Canadian Stock Exchange under the symbol “FTEL” andon the OTC under the symbol “FSTTF”. Further information aboutFTEL and its projects can be found on www.firsttellurium.com .

Neither theCanadian Securities Exchange nor its regulations services acceptresponsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-lookinginformation

All statements included in thispress release that address activities, events or developments that theCompany expects, believes or anticipates will or may occur in thefuture are forward-looking statements.  These forward-lookingstatements involve numerous assumptions made by the Company based onits experience, perception of historical trends, current conditions,expected future developments and other factors it believes areappropriate in the circumstances. In addition, these statementsinvolve substantial known and unknown risks and uncertainties thatcontribute to the possibility that the predictions, forecasts,projections and other forward-looking statements will proveinaccurate, certain of which are beyond the Company’s control. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-lookingstatements.  Except as required by law, the Company does not intendto revise or update these forward-looking statements after the datehereof or revise them to reflect the occurrence of futureunanticipated event.

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