On Monday 13 November, the three EU institutions reached a political agreement on the EU Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA). The CRMA establishes the EUs ambition to diversify its critical raw materials supply, while achieving higher capacity of extraction, processing and recycling in Europe. The adoption of the CRMA is dominating the discussions at the EU Raw Materials Week this week, attended by CEO Odd Strømsnes and CCO Fredrik Øksnes.
Notably, the co-legislators agreed to edit the original proposal from the European Commission to include synthetic graphite on its list of strategic raw materials. These are the critical raw materials linked to the highest geopolitical risks – notably raw materials where a few number of non-EU countries are dominating significant parts of the EU value chain. By 2030, the EU should not be dependent on one third country for more than 65% of the supply of one single strategic raw material.
Today, the EU imports 99% of its annual demand of natural graphite – primarily from China. With graphite representing one third of a battery’s carbon footprint, we at Bergen Carbon Solutions are happy to have developed a technology for capturing Co2 (CCU) while producing high-quality carbon structures for the battery industry. Our vision is to contribute to the overall decarbonisation targets of Europe, while becoming an important supplier of synthetic graphite – helping to achieve the ambition of the Critical Raw Materials Act.