A new agreement with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) could provide relief in one of the electric-vehicle battery sector’s most troublesome shortages. 

A SPAC is is a publicly traded company created for the purpose of acquiring or merging with an existing company. The Wall Street Journal reports that upstart mining company European Lithium has reached a deal with a blank-check company,Sizzle Acquisition Corp., that will value it at $970 million and list its shares in the U.S. 

The deal could help the miner raise cash and boost its efforts to become one of Europe’s only sources of a key metal for electric-vehicle batteries. Speculative investors have flocked to lithium mining companies hoping to benefit from an expected surge in demand for electric vehicles, and lithium prices have soared near record levels. 

The deal could also help break a big bottleneck in EV supply chains by bringing a regional supplier to European manufacturers that now rely heavily on China. 

BMW says it might purchase European Lithium output once a planned mine in Austria starts production in 2025.