FULL DISCLOSURE: First Phosphate is a sponsor of theDeepDive.ca.
In our latest site visit, we went to the Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean region to get a real-time look at what it actually takes to build a fully vertical battery company. We aren’t just talking about drilling holes in the dirt; we are talking about engineering a complete North American Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) battery supply chain—from high-purity rock, to phosphoric acid, to cathode material, right through to the final battery.
When First Phosphate first hit our radar, they were like many junior stage companies asking the market to believe in a massive blueprint few believed they would pull off. Today, that blueprint has transitioned into a real development project backed by serious corporate development and heavy-hitting government support.
This is no longer just a story about a phosphate deposit. It’s a story about doing something no one in North America has managed to do yet.
From Blueprint to Bankrolled
Building a mine-to-market operation requires a specific kind of mental grit from management, and it requires capital. Lately, First Phosphate’s vision has started to attract serious institutional and governmental backing.
In March, the company secured conditional approval for up to C$16.7 million in non-repayable federal support. They immediately followed that up with a massive letter of intent from Denmark’s export credit agency for up to €170 million in support of their Quebec igneous phosphate project.
The political consensus in the region is rapidly shifting in their favor. During the 2025 Canadian Federal Leaders Debate, Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet explicitly highlighted the strategic importance of the area:
“Quebec has probably the most important clean phosphate reserves in North America [located] in Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean… It is very important; it has to be exploited. This is the best way to use Port Saguenay as an infrastructure that we need.”
The Port and the Politics
A key piece of this puzzle is the Port of Saguenay—the potential future heartbeat of North America’s LFP battery supply chain.
The federal government has already committed $57 million to the Port to build out the infrastructure needed to handle critical minerals and get them to global markets quickly. For First Phosphate, this expansion is the perfect catalyst. The company has secured an industrial land option at the port to build a state-of-the-art phosphoric acid plant.
Their plan is to extract high-purity phosphate from their nearby Bégin-Lamarche property, bring it to the port using efficient, fully-enclosed conveyors (minimizing dust, noise, and trucking costs), and process it into battery-grade material. It transforms a traditional shipping hub into a vertical integration site where raw Quebec minerals become high-value tech components.
The Igneous Advantage
To understand why First Phosphate has an edge, you have to look at the geology at their Bégin-Lamarche mine site.
The traditional phosphate industry in the American South is largely based on sedimentary rock, which comes with a heavy environmental legacy and is generally unsuitable for direct battery manufacturing. First Phosphate is sitting on a rare igneous phosphate deposit.
- Clean and Pure: Igneous rock lacks the deleterious elements (like thorium, uranium, and cadmium) found in sedimentary deposits. It allows the company to produce a clean concentrate that is roughly 95% pure.
- Direct to Battery: Because of this purity, First Phosphate can bypass the traditional fertilizer industry altogether and refine the rock directly into purified phosphoric acid—the crucial intermediate component for batteries.
- Low-Cost Extraction: The mineralization starts right at the surface, outcropping everywhere. This enables a simple, low-cost, open-pit mining process.
- A Critical Co-Product: Uniquely, the process also recovers roughly 380,000 tonnes of magnetite (iron) per annum at grades of 92%. Iron is the secondary critical mineral required for LFP cathode production, giving them two pieces of the battery puzzle from one hole in the ground.
To date, the company has completed over 75,000 meters of drilling. The ultimate target? 900,000 tonnes of annual high-grade phosphate concentrate production over a 23-year mine life.
That is enough material to manufacture roughly 350 GWh of LFP batteries per year—enough to supply about half of the annual demand for EV production in North America.
The LFP Boom
If you are wondering why all this matters, you have to look at where battery chemistry is heading.
Think of a battery’s cathode as the “catcher’s mitt” that receives lithium ions to create power. Traditionally, EVs used NMC cathodes (Nickel, Manganese, and Cobalt). But LFP (Lithium Iron Phosphate) cathodes are rapidly becoming the global standard. They are vastly less likely to catch fire, boast a much longer lifespan, and are significantly cheaper to produce because they swap out expensive cobalt for abundant iron.
- In 2020, LFP batteries held just 10% of the global EV market.
- By 2024, that surged to 40% globally, dominating 60% of the market in China.
- Analysts project the LFP market will double from $82.5 billion in 2025 to over $160 billion by 2030.
Beyond EVs, LFP is the undisputed king of grid-scale energy storage (storing solar and wind power), where it commands an estimated 80% market share.
Doing it “Their Way”
At the helm of all this is CEO John Passalacqua.
Building a junior company into a fully vertical battery solution requires a specific, often intense, brand of leadership. John is laser-focused on an end-to-end solution, a drive that has manifested in a relentless stream of MOUs and corporate development milestones.
While the broader market might just see a rock in the ground in Quebec, John sees the fundamental building block for the next decade of energy storage. In an industry full of followers, First Phosphate is choosing the harder path: building a completely vertical, clean, and localized supply chain from scratch.
When asked about his strategy, John put it simply:
“If I had to pick a song, it would be Frank Sinatra, right? We’re doing it our own way. It’s working out, and we’re happy with it.”
It is a bold approach to corporate development. But to build a completely localized, North American supply chain from the ground up, you can’t rely on the industry’s old blueprints. Doing it “their way” isn’t just a preference—it is the only way they can be the very first to actually get it done. And as the world scrambles for cleaner, safer, and domestic energy security, that might be exactly what the market demands.
FULL DISCLOSURE: First Phosphate is a client of Canacom Group, the parent company of The Deep Dive. Canacom Group is currently long the equity of First Phosphate. The author has been compensated to cover First Phosphate on The Deep Dive, with The Deep Dive having full editorial control. Not a recommendation to buy or sell. We may buy or sell securities in the company at any time. Always do additional research and consult a professional before purchasing a security.
