First Phosphate Corp. provides its perspective on recent volume increases and price volatility in the trading of its common shares.
On October 9, 2025, China’s Ministry of Commerce announced broad new unilateral export controls on rare earth and other processed critical materials, including lithium iron phosphate cathode active material, and certain related equipment and technologies. Such restrictions, under Ministry of Commerce Notice No 55-62, are to come into effect as of November 8, 2025.
Following the announcement, the shares of First Phosphate and certain other publicly traded entities with interests or operations associated with the exploration, mining, processing and/or manufacture of materials and technologies subject to these export controls experienced large volume increases and price volatility.
If implemented, these export controls on LFP CAM are expected to impact various industries around the world that rely on such technologies and inputs, including energy storage, AI data centres, robotics, mobility, defence and electric vehicles. LFP batteries represent a majority of all global electric battery production, most of which is manufactured in China.
First Phosphate has been fully dedicated to onshoring the LFP battery supply chain in North America through its proposed development of mining and downstream processing of North American critical minerals.
First Phosphate has recently produced what may be the first-ever commercial-grade LFP 18650 battery cells using North American critical minerals.
The high-purity phosphoric acid and iron powder for these LFP 18650 battery cells were produced from rare igneous anorthosite rock extracted from the First Phosphate Bégin-Lamarche property in the Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean region of Quebec, Canada.
First Phosphate’s recent white paper on Securing North American Phosphate Supply for LFP Cathode Materials recently received a “Met” rating from the Defence Industrial Base Consortium, which emphasised that phosphate, particularly for use in LFP CAM, is essential to national defence.
Demand for LFP batteries is likely to continue to increase, and having a domestic source greatly reduces dependency on China and its control over the LFP market.
Given these recent developments, First Phosphate looks to accelerate its mine-to-market LFP battery supply chain strategy for North America in the markets of energy storage, data centres, robotics, mobility, defence and electric vehicles.
