News: Crowded herd of lithium explorers faces culling as supplies rise, page-11

" 7 years for a green-fields brine processing operation to reach full production" - with the new technologies out there like the one Posco uses it shouldn't take more than a month.

http://globalblog.posco.com/posco-innovation-shapes-lithium-market/

Lithium extraction traditionally takes anywhere from 12-18 months using a slow evaporation technique. However, POSCO’s new extraction method takes from 8 hours up to one month while also offering a purity rate of 99.9% and increasing the lithium recovery rate to over 80%.