(Corrects spelling of Rag in the last paragraph) By Divya Rajagopal TORONTO, March 8 (Reuters) - BHP Group Ltd onWednesday said it remains committed to growing its portfolio ofcopper and nickel projects but is not interested in the lithiummarket, which it believes is well supplied. The comments echo those the world's largest mining companymade in the past year and come as lithium prices have beensliding amid demand worries. Analysts are expecting lithiumprices to plunge by 25% in total this year, largely due to anexpected slowdown in China's EV market as government subsidieswane.
"We still don't see the demand-supply equation of lithium tobe as fundamental as copper and nickel," Sonia Scarselli of BHPXlpor, the company's division that invests in junior miningcompanies, told Reuters on the sidelines of the Prospectors andDevelopers Association of Canada (PDAC) mining conference inToronto. "For us, lithium will remain flat." The bet is a bit of a counterintuitive one among BHP'sglobal mining peers. Rio Tinto Ltd , for example,paid $825 million in late 2021 for a lithium project inArgentina and is trying to build a lithium mine in Serbia. Glencore Plc is the second-largest shareholder inLi-Cycle Holdings Corp , a recycler set to become one ofthe largest U.S. lithium producers by next year. And SibanyeStillwater Ltd has agreed to help ioneer Ltd develop a Nevada lithium project. BHP expects global copper and nickel supplies to remainbelow demand as few new mines for either metal are coming onlinein the near future. The company has invested $500,000 each in Nordic Nickel Ltd , Tutume Metals, Asian Battery Minerals, Impact MineralsLtd , Red Ox Copper, Bronzite Corp, Kingsrose Mining Ltd , each of which are exploring nickel and copper depositsacross the globe.
BHP last year also invested $40 million in Kabanga Nickel,which is developing a nickel mine in Tanzania, and is helpingRio to develop the massive Resolution Copper mining project inArizona.
The Kabanga investment, BHP's first in Africa since 2015,was part of what Chief Executive Mike Henry described as awillingness to move into "tougher jurisdictions." That move cameafter BHP lost out on a 2021 bid to buy Canadian junior nickelminer Noront Resources.
Elsewhere, BHP has committed to invest C$12 billion ($8.7billion) to build a potash mine in Canada's Saskatchewanprovince as global population growth fuels greater demand forthe fertilizer.
Supply interruptions from Belarus and Russia, the twolargest potash producers, make Canada well positioned" to fillthe supply gap, Ragnar Udd, president of BHP Americas, said inan interview. ($1 = 1.3798 Canadian dollars) (Reporting by Divya Rajagopal; editing by Ernest Scheyder)
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