Lithium Abundance Promised From The Pampas To The Pennines

The potential supply of lithium for use in batteries that could be processed in the UK is set to soar, with sources coming from near and far as the global market increasingly finds that supplies once thought very scarce become increasingly abundant.

Such is the case from the Pampas to the Pennines, as nations as far apart as Argentina and the UK are set to step up production.

Those following events in the UK may be aware of the recent planning application made by Weardale Lithium to establish what would be the first extraction plant or mine in the UK, with plans to eventually extract 10,000 tonnes of the material a year from the thermal brines of the valley.

The UK’s domestic processing industry will not be confined to a section of the Pennines in County Durham, with firms like Cornish Lithium aiming at similar production levels in the years to come.

However, the amount of lithium that these UK sites may produce is a tiny fraction of the global supply; indeed, it will only make up a minority of the lithium that the UK will be able to refine when plants such as the Green Lithium refinery in the Tees Freeport – which has recently been finalising its fundraising – come on stream.  

Do Mine For Me, Argentina

A notable case is that of Argentina. It is a country blessed with rich lithium reserves, but until now much of it has remained in the ground.

However, as Bloomberg reports, that is about to change. Whereas just a single mine has opened up in the last decade and there are only three firms in the country exporting lithium, four new projects are close to becoming operational. This means that the global lithium supply, which is currently strong, will be even more abundant for the foreseeable future.

Indeed, Bloomberg’s analysis of Argentine government data indicates that the new projects will raise the country’s lithium production levels by 79 per cent to 202,000 metric tonnes a year, although this full capacity won’t be reached immediately.

The large rise in production from Argentina is far from the only notable overseas development that will add to global lithium output.

Serbia’s U-Turn A Boost For Europe

According to the Financial Times, authorities in Serbia are about to give Rio Tinto planning permission to finally open a mine that would exploit one of the largest known deposits of the material. It could be open as soon as 2028.

The project had previously been approved in 2022, but the Serbian government called a halt amid concerns from environmentalists about water pollution and from locals about residents having to relocate their homes. However, amended proposals aimed at meeting these concerns have satisfied the authorities in Belgrade.

As well as increasing overall supplies, there has been some relief that the project has gone ahead with support from the EU.

Serbia’s historical political ties with Russia and refusal to impose sanctions after the invasion of Ukraine led to fears that if the mine went ahead, it would be one of Putin’s allies – specifically China – that gained control. However, Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic confirmed that it was only ever the plan to deal with the EU.

Oceans Of Lithium Supply

Besides all these mines opening up around the world and here in the UK, there is another game-changer potentially on the way for lithium supply. Molecular engineers from the University of Chicago have established a method of extracting lithium from seawater, groundwater, and even wastewater left over from fracking.

The research paper details how the breakthrough has been achieved using certain iron phosphate particles, which can help extract lithium from water more efficiently than other methods tried so far.

Senior author of the paper Chong Lui said: “Our method allows the efficient extraction of the mineral from very dilute liquids, which can greatly broaden the potential sources of lithium.”

It has been known for some time that the potential of the oceans to provide lithium is vast, with around 200 billion metric tonnes out there. The key has been to find an efficient method to extract it that can be scaled up sufficiently.

Whether or not this announcement from Chicago heralds the point where seawater extraction becomes a method to rival or even surpass on-land mining from rock or thermal brine extraction (the latter being the Weardale extraction method), fears expressed a few years ago that there may be too little lithium in the world appear increasingly unfounded.

With new refineries also being built in the UK and elsewhere, it is also increasingly clear that China is not going to dominate the processing stage, which means the world is set to have an abundant supply of lithium largely free from geopolitical leverage.