Integrated critical mineral manufacturing company American Battery Technology Company has won its appeal with the US Department of Energy (DoE) for the reinstatement of its competitive grant award to support the $115-million project for the construction of the first phase of its commercial-scale critical mineral lithium refinery as part of its Tonopah Flats lithium project (TFLP), in Nevada.

The grant has been reinstated in its entirety, with no change to funds awarded or to technical and commercial milestones, and with an updated contracted project schedule to adjust for the time spent within the review process.

“We are proud of our long-standing partnership with the US DoE and are grateful that after rigorous due diligence it has concluded that this critical mineral lithium refinery project has achieved all of its contracted technical and commercial milestones to date, and that continued federal support of this project is warranted,” says American Battery Technology Company CEO Ryan Melsert.

“Of the hundreds of DoE grants terminated last fall, very few have been able to successfully appeal the decisions and have their contracts reinstated, and I am very proud of our team for relentlessly demonstrating the performance of these internally-developed critical mineral technologies and how crucial it is to implement and scale these commercial facilities to support the national security of the US and enable its energy dominance,” he adds.

In October 2022, American Battery Technology Company was initially selected for this highly competitive, five-year DoE grant to support the construction of the first phase of its TFLP commercial-scale refinery with an initial capacity of 5 000 t/y of battery-grade lithium hydroxide.

The company successfully completed the first two years of the contracted grant, and additionally, in June 2025, the TFLP was selected by the White House’s National Energy Dominance Council and the FAST-41 Permitting Council as a critical mineral priority project for streamlined and fast-tracked federal permitting.

On October 9, 2025, however, the company was notified that this grant, along with hundreds of other DoE grants, was being terminated.

It submitted an appeal of the termination on October 10, 2025, and entered into the informal dispute resolution (IDR) process with the DoE.

Over the following months, the company and the DoE entered into a series of technical and commercial reviews of the performance of the project, culminating in a final IDR review meeting in December 2025.

After conclusion of the IDR meeting, the company received notice from the DoE that “after a thorough review of all materials submitted, including your reconsideration request, the department has concluded that recission of the termination notice and continuation of the project is warranted”.

The company’s project has been supported by a multi-phase federal effort to advance the development of pioneer critical mineral technologies.

Initial bench-scale development and construction of an integrated demonstration facility were supported by a DoE grant awarded during the first Trump Administration through the Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office.

Following successful operations of these technologies at the integrated demonstration scale, the project was subsequently awarded this DoE grant during the Biden Administration through the Manufacturing Energy Supply Chain Office.

Now, after rigorous review, this project is receiving reinstatement and recontracting under the second Trump Administration.

“At the conclusion of our demonstration facility project with the DoE’s Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office team, we were very proud of achieving all of the contracted technical and performance milestones and were able to present these achievements at several DoE-supported events,” says Melsert.

“At the conclusion of our IDR review meeting, we told the DoE Manufacturing Energy Supply Chain team that we hope to make them as proud of our commercial-scale refinery as they were of our demonstration-scale facility,” he avers.