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Russia plans to speed up its only lithium production project by 3-4 years from an originally planned 2030 to cut its dependence on imports and battery components, the CEO of the Polar Lithium joint venture said on Thursday.
Supplies from Chile and Argentina have dried up since 2022 after sanctions were imposed on Moscow and Russia has since had to rely on lithium carbonate supplies from Bolivia and China.
Polar Lithium, a joint venture of Russian metals giant Nornickel and state-owned nuclear energy firm Rosatom, is developing the Kolmozerskoye lithium deposit in northwestern part of the country.
It aims to become Russia’s first-ever domestic producer of lithium-bearing raw materials and eventually build full local production of lithium-ion batteries.
The project was originally expected to reach full annual production capacity of 45,000 metric tons of lithium carbonate and hydroxide by 2030.
Global prices for lithium, a key raw material in electric car batteries, slumped in 2023 due to electric vehicles sales lagging expectations and surplus supply, but this did not change Russia’s appetite for its own production in the future.
“Lithium is really clearly becoming the oil of the 21st century,” Polar Lithium CEO Igor Demidov told a conference in St Petersburg.
Subject to shareholder approval later this month, Polar Lithium aims to speed up development of the deposit and launch the first stage of production – in the pilot mode and at 10% of total planned capacity – in 2026-2027, Demidov said.
Consultancy Benchmark Mineral Intelligence forecasts large global lithium surpluses from 2024 to 2027, before a deficit of nearly 400,000 tons of lithium carbonate equivalent in 2030.
(By Anastasia Lyrchikova and Polina Devitt; Editing by Alexander Smith)
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