Lithium, page-1361

CEO Luke Kissam on Lithium in Albemarle Q3 earnings transcript:

In August, we signed a definitive agreement to acquire the lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate conversion assets of Jiangxi Jiangli New Materials Science and Technology Company, with the closing expected by the end of the first quarter 2017. Once closed, these assets will give us spodumene conversion capacity of 15,000 metric tons per year of lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate with infrastructure already in place to support a 20,000 to 25,000 metric ton expansion.

Spodumene for the current operations and the planned expansion will be supplied from our Talison joint venture in Australia. The acquisition increases our control of the supply chain from spodumene mining through production and sales of battery-grade lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate. In addition to the planned capacity expansion at Jiangxi Jiangli, we will continue to pursue development of a greenfield spodumene conversion plant of approximately another 40,000 metric tons a year so that we can fully utilize the Talison resources over time.

Full utilization of the Talison resources combined with the additional capacity we expect to add in Chile once a new quota is finalized will allow us to achieve roughly 160,000 metric tons per year of lithium carbonate equivalent production capacity by the beginning of the next decade. Based on current demand projections, we believe we will fully utilize that capacity by the early to mid-2020s. At that point, our assets in Chile and Australia will have many years of useful life remaining, but as of now, we do not believe further expansions are likely. Therefore, to meet the expected market growth past the early 2020s, we will need new resources.

The agreement with Bolland Minera S.A. that we announced in the third quarter is a positive step in that direction. This agreement gives us exclusive exploration and acquisition rights to a lithium reserve in Antofalla in the Catamarca Province of Argentina. Based on existing data, we believe this resource will be certified as the largest lithium resource in Argentina.

Given the development cycle to commercialize a new resource, we must begin investing now to bring new resources online by the early to mid-2020s. Our very preliminary evaluation on the Antofalla resource is encouraging, but you can expect it to take one to two years for us to make a decision on commercial viability.