While other battery metals including cobalt and nickel are down significantly from highs hit earlier this year, lithium continues to sell at record prices with carbonate prices doubling this year alone.
Companies and country’s are scrambling to cash in: Australia overtook Chile as the dominant supplier of lithium five years ago, but both countries continue to attract investment. Chile’s state-owned copper giant Codelco has joined the fray while a recent conference in Australia bragged of an “insatiable appetite” for the white metal.
State-owned copper producer in Mexico, which in April nationalized the industry, last month estimated the vast deposit located in northern Sonora state could be worth as much as 12 trillion pesos, or $600 billion.
In May, Argentina’s government said it expected investments in the sector worth $4.2 billion over the next five years, which could be an underestimate.
Congo-Kinshasa, already the dominant player in cobalt, is now jumping into the lithium market with both feet, while Chinese investors are also investing heavily in Zimbabwean projects.
Mining projects in the US and Europe are still fighting for a social licence to operate. The massive and unique Jadar project in Serbia is stalled due to concerted environmental opposition, while the Thacker Pass project in Nevada is dealing with pushback by a local native American tribe and ranchers.
The animated graph below shows the world’s top lithium producing countries since 2012 and forecasts the winners in the race over the next decade, based on forecasts by Fitch Solutions, a country risk and industry research company.
4 Comments
Luis E. Gonzalez
I found interesting but inaccurate, how is possible that the animation doesn’t show any production of Bolivia, and at the beginning the biggest resource of Lithium is shown.
Frik Els
Thanks for the comment Luis. Bolivia has the largest reserves of lithium in the world, but “despite decades of attempts, Bolivia has yet to achieve any commercial lithium production”: https://www.mining.com/web/bolivia-again-delays-announcement-on-lithium-mining-tie-ups/
Alexander Eroshenko
The testament of all business gurus is not to follow the herd. Look for your “deep ocean”.
The future belongs to iron-phosphate and sodium-sulfur batteries.
William Tahil
Unfortunately herd mentality is actually the norm in the business world – jumping on bandwagons. It was crystal clear in 2007 when GM launched the Volt that expanding lithium production to meet mass market requirements for EVs was not going to be possible. (See “The Trouble with Lithium”). But they have all just gone along with it, except Toyota.Yes, different battery or electrical power technologies (“Zero Point”) are needed.