A €2 billion fund, including €500 million in public money, to help French companies gain access to critical metals essential to the energy transition. This is what the management company InfraVia and the government have just announced.
This was one of the lessons of the Covid crisis in 2020: France, and more broadly Europe, is very dependent on the outside world to ensure the supply of its major manufacturers.
"The health crisis has clearly highlighted the growing dependence of major industrial sectors on certain strategic supplies of raw materials or key components," explained Philippe Varin, the former president of PSA and Areva, in a report commissioned by the government on the subject and delivered in January 2022.
The fund must make it possible to resolve, at least in part, this lack of sovereignty. It also aims at financial profitability, because the potential of segments related to the energy transition is gigantic. The demand for lithium, used in batteries for electric vehicles, is expected to increase tenfold in the coming years.
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"We are targeting lithium, cobalt and nickel as a first step," explains Vincent Levita, president and founder of InfraVia. Investments will be made on a global scale, with a right of access to resources commensurate with the amount of investment made." At the same time, purchasing agreements will be concluded with industrialists, first French and probably European in a second time, over a long period and at a defined price. This limits the risk for the investment fund.
The aim is to raise €1 billion by the end of the year and €2 billion in total. The first investments are planned for early 2024. In total, ten to fifteen projects could be supported, for a ticket of between 100 and 300 million euros.