Two mines, built up over years
Talison Lithium runs Greenbushes, a mine in Western Australia that digs up spodumene, a rock that holds lithium. The company formed in 2009, jointly owned by Tianqi Lithium Energy Australia, which holds 51%, and Albemarle Corporation, which holds 49%. In 2017 Talison Lithium began building a second plant to turn the rock into concentrate, crushed ore with the lithium enriched, spending 320,000,000 dollars. The new plant more than doubled the mine capacity, to 1.34 million tonnes of concentrate a year. Greenbushes is what the industry calls a hard rock mine, digging lithium out of solid rock rather than pumping it up as a liquid. A second hard rock mine, Wodgina, sits 1,525 kilometres from Perth and is run by Mineral Resources Limited and Albemarle Corporation, who each own half. Mineral Resources Limited says Wodgina can produce about 750,000 tonnes of concentrate a year. Wodgina includes a camp that can house up to 900 workers who fly in and fly out on rotation rather than living permanently nearby, and the site crushes ore through 3 separate processing trains.
The Greenbushes figure, 1.34 million tonnes a year, is stated directly by Talison Lithium, source 2. The Wodgina figure, about 750,000 tonnes a year, is stated directly by Mineral Resources Limited, source 3. Both are converted to thousand tonnes here.
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| Greenbushes | 1,340 |
| Wodgina | 750 |
A refinery, and the world lead
Downstream of the mines, Tianqi Lithium Corporation set out in 2016 to build a plant in Western Australia that would turn concentrate into lithium hydroxide, the chemical refiners need before lithium can go into a battery. That plant, at Kwinana, reached production in 2022, in partnership with IGO Limited. Tianqi Lithium Energy Australia says Kwinana employs over 350 people and Greenbushes about 1,500, roughly 1,850 combined at those 2 sites, a MAOWCE calculation adding the company own 2 figures, and not a count of the whole Australian lithium industry. The company also says the 2 sites have put about 3,000,000,000 dollars into the Western Australian economy, and that it has separately spent 13,000,000 dollars finding uses for the byproducts its refining leaves behind. By 2023, Geoscience Australia counted Australia as the biggest lithium producer in the world, with 49% of global output.
Then the price collapsed
Spodumene concentrate that Pilbara Minerals sold for 4,266 US dollars a dry tonne in the third quarter of 2022 was down to 2,240 dollars a year later, a fall of 47%, and to 840 dollars by the second quarter of 2024, a further fall ABC News describes as more than 50% over the 12 months that followed.
Figures are Pilbara Minerals spodumene concentrate prices as reported by ABC News.
Show the numbers
| Quarter 3 2022 | 4,266 |
| Quarter 3 2023 | 2,240 |
| Quarter 2 2024 | 840 |
Dale Henderson, chief executive officer of Pilbara Minerals, said what the swing taught the industry.
What we've learned historically from lithium pricing is that it can change, and it can change rapidly.
Dale Henderson, chief executive officer of Pilbara Minerals. Source 5.
Demand kept growing anyway
The price fell even though buyers kept coming. Graham Evans of S and P Global Mobility said electric vehicle sales, the main source of lithium demand, were still climbing in the 2 biggest markets outside China, even as spodumene concentrate kept getting cheaper.
We are seeing growth of 32 per cent in North America this year, 7 per cent in Europe.
Graham Evans, identified in the source as being with S and P Global Mobility. Source 5.