Quebec Phosphate Project Gets Italian Muscle

First Phosphate sealed Italian financing and engineering deals at the G7, fast-tracking a Western battery supply chain in Quebec

30 Jun 2026

A phosphate deposit in Quebec just picked up some serious financial muscle. First Phosphate signed investment and offtake agreements with Italian institutions at the G7 Summit in Évian, France, on June 17, locking allied capital behind a project meant to challenge China's grip on battery materials.

The agreements arrived under the Critical Minerals Resilience and Production Alliance, and the list of new partners reads like a who's-who of Italian industrial finance. SACE and CDP bring capital. SIMEST brings trade expertise. MAIRE brings engineering reach. Together, they're backing phosphoric acid production at Port Saguenay, where Ballestra technology will run the show.

Lithium iron phosphate sits at the center of it all. Demand for LFP battery material has climbed fast as G7 nations scramble to cut ties with non-allied suppliers, and striking these deals at a G7 forum sends an unmistakable signal: this isn't just a business deal, it's policy made tangible.

CEO John Passalacqua didn't undersell the moment. "We are proud to lead the G7 in the development of this clean, rare igneous phosphate material into a downstream lithium iron phosphate battery supply chain for the G7 Alliance," he said. Confidence like that usually needs backing, and now he has it.

Why does this matter beyond Quebec? Because Port Saguenay offers something rare: a credible, non-Chinese source of phosphoric acid at real scale. Battery makers need it. EV manufacturers need it. Energy storage companies need it too.

Italian money changes the math here. Financing, trade know-how, and engineering depth don't just speed up construction timelines, they remove the capital bottlenecks that kill projects like this before they start. Consumers eventually feel the difference, too, as diversified supply chains tend to smooth out the price swings that plague emerging battery technologies.

However, the political scaffolding is in place. What's left is execution, and First Phosphate now has the institutional weight to attempt it.