Projects

Thacker Pass Phase I

Mining & Critical Minerals

Nevada, U.S.

Active

Strengthening Energy
Independence in
the United States

In the high desert of north-central Nevada lies the largest-measured lithium deposit in the world. Volcanic activity 17 million years ago, and geologic activity since then, have concentrated the lithium in clay near the surface at a location just south of the Oregon border called Thacker Pass.

Lithium is a critical ingredient in all major electric vehicle battery technologies, but demand for lithium will almost quadruple and eclipse worldwide production by 2030.

A joint venture of Lithium Americas and General Motors is building a lithium mine and large-scale processing facility at Thacker Pass. With the completion of Phase I, Thacker Pass will singlehandedly produce more than eight times the current U.S. output of lithium carbonate for electric vehicle batteries – all mined and processed on site.

The Bechtel Difference

Bechtel will help make that a reality as the engineering, procurement, and construction management contractor, while also self-performing certain construction activities.  

Bechtel will manage the construction the 642-acre plant complex with 600,000 square feet of processing plant buildings, administrative buildings, roads, utilities, and associated infrastructure. We will partner with dozens of subcontractors, suppliers, and vendors, many of them in Nevada, to complete the job.

Bechtel will leverage its decades of construction experience in critical mineral mining facilities and its relationships in the global supply chain to help the project apply known technologies in a first-of-a-kind way for the clay ore in the region. 

Watch this video to see how:

Sustainability at
the Forefront

85%

Groundwater
Recycled

40%

Self-Generated
Electricity

2,000

Construction
Jobs Created

  • The project will recycle more than 85% of the groundwater it uses in the processing plant and, overall, will use about the same amount of water as a typical farm or ranch in the region.

  • Rather than leave an open pit during mining operations, the pit will be re-filled and reclaimed with native vegetation as each section is completed.

  • The plant will generate more than 40% of its own electricity. Excess heat from its on-site production of sulfuric acid will power a steam generator. The rest of the electricity will come from hydropower in the Pacific Northwest.

  • Construction will utilize union labor through a Project Labor Agreement with North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU). The project will create up to 2,000 construction jobs including apprenticeships for trainees who can earn a living wage while learning valuable trade skills

  • Lithium Americas has a community benefits agreement with the Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Native American tribe, a close neighbor to the project site.

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Cherag Sarosh Balsara

Independent Director

Cherag Sarosh Balsara is an Additional Independent Director on the Board of our Company. He holds a bachelor’s degree in commerce from the Sydenham College of Commerce and Economics, University of Bombay, a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in law from Government Law College, University of Bombay. He has over 31 years of experience as an advocate on the rolls of the Bar Council of Maharashtra & Goa.