Top World’s Lithium producers incldue: Albemarle; SQM (Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile); Tianqi Lithium; Mineral Resources Ltd.; Ganfeng Lithium; Pilbara Minerals; Allkem; Livent; Sichuan Yahua Industrial; Lithium Americas, amongst others.
Power is key in our world today—if it is not available via plug-and-play, it can be retained in energy storage systems. The use of portable electronic devices, cars, and other mobile appliances is propelling lithium mining around the globe.
In essence, lithium is obtained through two distinctive sources:
- Brine: Lithium brine deposits are accumulations of saline groundwater enriched in dissolved lithium. Although abundant in nature, only select regions in the world contain brines, mostly in South America.
- Mineral/hard rock: Lithium found in ‘hard rock’ is a part of those minerals hosted in pegmatites, rock units formed when mineral-rich magma intrudes from magma chambers into the Earth’s crust. As the magma cools, water and other minerals become concentrated.
There is a third source, extraction for lithium clays, but it is not economically sustainable as there is still no commercial scale of production for this method. Major deposits of lithium can be found in Australia, Chile, China, and Argentina. These four countries hold more than 80% of the worlds known reserves, and as of today, they produce more than 97% of the available capacity.
In terms of companies involved in the production of lithium, there are only a few major operators. The world’s largest lithium producer, Albemarle Corporation, operates at the Chilean resource of Salar de Atacama in partnership with the second biggest producer, Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile (SQM). While Australia and Chile account for the majority of lithium supply, China has more than half of all capacity for refining it into specialized battery chemicals.
How is the addressable market evolving?
Between 2000 and 2010, lithium consumption in batteries increased by 20% annually. This period of time was followed by a decade where the annual increase jumped five-fold, on average. According to BloombergNEF, the demand for lithium is expected to increase three-fold from 2020 levels.