Australia's Piedmont signs lithium ore supply deal with Tesla, shares surge

The initial five-year agreement implies that Piedmont will supply about a third of its planned 160,000-tonnes-per-year spodumene concentrate produce from its deposits in North Carolina. The deal comes on the heels of Tesla's "Battery Day" presentation last week when Chief Executive Elon Musk shared his vision of novel, proprietary Tesla batteries, following which Tesla stock lost more than $30 billion in market value. Piedmont said in a statement that the agreement marked the beginning of the its first U.S. domestic lithium supply chain and that talks are ongoing over other sales arrangements.