Lithium from brine and rock to the battery in an electric car

By Alykhan Virani. Published 2026-10-11.

Part 13 of the series From source to store.

Albemarle’s brine at the Salar de Atacama in Chile spends about 18 to 24 months in open evaporation ponds before it is concentrated enough to process (Albemarle, Form 10-K for 2025). Rock takes another road: PLS, an Australian miner, sold 891.6 thousand tonnes of spodumene concentrate in the year to 30 June 2026, and customers in China supplied A$540.8 million of its A$625.5 million in spodumene revenue from external customers, 86.5%, in the six months to 31 December 2025 (PLS, 30 July 2026 and its interim report of 19 February 2026). Three scopes appear below, and none adds to another. USGS counts lithium content, the metal inside the mineral or brine (Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026, estimates for 2025). Customs data count products: carbonate (HS code 283691), oxide and hydroxide (282520) and a catch-all ore heading, 2530, that includes spodumene (CEPII BACI, 2024). Companies report concentrate tonnes or lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE), which is lithium content divided by 0.1878 (Albemarle’s factor, 2025).

How it is extracted

In 2025 the world mined an estimated 290,000 tonnes of lithium content, up 30.6% from 222,000 tonnes in 2024; USGS excludes United States output from both totals to avoid disclosing company data. Australia, China and Chile supplied 72.4% of the 2025 total (92,000, 62,000 and 56,000 tonnes), and an earlier post ranks every producer. China’s output rose 49.8% to 62,000 tonnes and Argentina’s 66.7% to 23,000 (USGS, 2024 and 2025 estimates; shares and growth are this site’s arithmetic).

Greenbushes in Western Australia is an open pit 90 kilometers from the port of Bunbury. Its probable reserves graded 1.9% lithium oxide on 31 December 2025, and its spodumene holds about 8% (Albemarle, Form 10-K for 2025). A plant lifts the grade before sale: PLS produced concentrate at an average grade of 5.3% lithium oxide in the year to 30 June 2026, with June-quarter shipments averaging about 5.2%, and recovered 76.5% of the lithium in the ore it processed that year (PLS, 30 July 2026). A tonne of 5.3% concentrate holds about 25 kilograms of lithium, so PLS’s 879.5 thousand tonnes made in the year to 30 June 2026 held about 21,700 tonnes of lithium (this site’s arithmetic, using lithium’s 46.5% share of lithium oxide by atomic mass).

Brine operations pump lithium-bearing water into ponds; at the Salar de Atacama, halite and potassium salts crystallize first and leave a lithium chloride solution of about 4% to 5% lithium (SQM, a Chilean producer, Form 20-F for 2025). USGS puts Atacama brine at 1,400 parts per million lithium against 160 at Clayton Valley, Nevada, where nearly 2 years of pond time lifts it to 5,000 (Professional Paper 1802-K, 2017). In Argentina, the Cauchari-Olaroz brine operation made 9,280 tonnes of lithium carbonate in the second quarter of 2026, and its owners are engineering a 10,000-tonne-a-year (LCE) direct extraction module (Lithium Argentina, 11 August 2026).

From ore or brine to chemicals

Battery makers buy carbonate or hydroxide, not rock or brine (SQM, Form 20-F for 2025). The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimated that China refined almost 65% of the world’s lithium in 2023 and Chile about 25% (Global EV Outlook 2025). Albemarle’s Greenbushes venture sells concentrate to three Albemarle hydroxide plants in China, at Meishan, Qinzhou and Xinyu (Form 10-K for 2025). SQM moves Atacama lithium chloride to its carbonate plant, which its filing places about 190 kilometers from the salar (the same filing also puts the salar’s facilities 210 kilometers east of Antofagasta), which had 210,000 tonnes a year of carbonate capacity at the end of 2025, and sends lithium sulfate to refiners and toll processors in China (Form 20-F for 2025).

SQM estimated 2025 shares of lithium-chemical sales volumes at 14% for itself, 12% for Albemarle, 6% for Ganfeng, 5% for Tianqi and 4% for Rio Tinto, 41% together (company estimates).

Moving it

Source: CEPII BACI HS22, 2024. Tonnes are product weight, not lithium content; heading 2530 also holds other minerals, so it is an upper bound for spodumene.

China took 72.0% of 2024 import value under heading 2530. Chile sent $2.03 billion of carbonate to China, 72.1% of its carbonate exports (BACI, 2024), and SQM said 95% of its 2025 lithium sales were in Asia and that it exports through four Chilean ports, Antofagasta, Tocopilla, Mejillones and Iquique (Form 20-F for 2025). PLS loads at Port Hedland and reported US$2,107 a tonne, CIF China, for about 5.2% concentrate in the June 2026 quarter, or US$2,415 on a 6%-equivalent basis; vessel waits at Port Hedland rose materially in May 2026, and quarterly sales were not affected (PLS, 30 July 2026). USGS quotes 6%-lithium-oxide spodumene FOB Australia at about $800 a tonne in January 2025 and $970 in November, and carbonate CIF China, about $9,300 and $10,300 in those months (USGS, 2026); FOB, CIF and Incoterms explains the difference.

Cells, packs and the car

LFP, or lithium iron phosphate, made over 55% of EV batteries deployed worldwide in 2025, up from nearly 50% in 2024, and it contains no cobalt (IEA, Global EV Outlook 2026). EVs took more than 70% of global battery deployment in 2025, down from almost 80% in 2024 (IEA, 2026); that counts battery capacity, not lithium. USGS estimated batteries at 88% of global lithium end use (Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026, year not stated).

China made over 80% of battery cells in 2025, and Chinese-headquartered producers supplied almost 75% of electric-car batteries deployed (IEA, 2026). China supplied almost 85% of cathode active materials (IEA, Global EV Outlook 2025, no year stated for that figure; the passage covers 2024 cell production). Critical minerals make up about 3% of an average electric car’s price against about one-quarter of battery cell cost, the IEA says (Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2026).

DR Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo) mined 74.2% of the world’s cobalt in 2025, 230,000 of 310,000 tonnes (USGS), and USGS says most cobalt is a by-product of copper mining (Professional Paper 1802-F, 2017). The by-products report maps that link; see also cobalt and nickel.

Where the chain is thin

Why do lithium prices swing so far, and what shuts mines?

USGS tabulates annual average battery-grade carbonate prices, labeled real and drawn from Benchmark assessments, at $63,700 a tonne in 2022 and $9,000 in 2025. The IEA says prices at the start of 2026 were more than twice a year earlier but about 70% below the 2022 peak, and lithium companies cut investment by around 40% in 2025 (Global EV Outlook 2026; Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2026). IMF lithium metal, a different product, averaged $77,075 a tonne in June 2025 and $148,620 in August 2026 (prices).

Albemarle put Kemerton Train 2 in Western Australia into care and maintenance in 2024, citing depressed prices, idled its Chengdu plant in China in 2025 and announced the same step for Train 1 in February 2026 (Form 10-K for 2025). PLS kept its Ngungaju plant in care and maintenance through December 2025 and began a restart on 1 July 2026 (PLS, 30 July 2026). Battery maker CATL’s Jianxiawo mine in Jiangxi halted after its mining license expired in August 2025, and Benchmark said on 1 September 2026 that the lepidolite (lithium mica) mine was back in care and maintenance after a brief informal restart in July, and that its environmental impact assessment had been revoked (Mining Reporters, 2 September 2026).

Which governments can stop lithium at the border?

Zimbabwe mined 28,000 tonnes of lithium content in 2025 (USGS). It banned unbeneficiated lithium ore on 16 December 2022, applied a 10% export VAT to ore and concentrate from 1 January 2026, and suspended raw mineral and concentrate exports on 25 or 26 February 2026, depending on the report, before reopening under quotas (this site’s export-controls register; Reuters via Kitco, 9 April 2026). The register lists a concentrate export ban as scheduled for 1 January 2027 and not in effect as of 9 October 2026; Reuters reported on 17 July 2026, via Miningmx on 20 July, that Zimbabwe’s only operating lithium sulfate plant, owned by a Huayou subsidiary, could process only its own concentrator’s output.

China’s Announcement 2025 No. 28 of 15 July 2025 put lithium carbonate and hydroxide production from spodumene, brine extraction and LFP cathode technology on its restricted-export list, which the register shows in force as of 9 October 2026 on the evidence found. Announcement No. 58 of 9 October 2025 would have controlled high-energy batteries, LFP cathode material and graphite anode material from 8 November 2025; a 7 November 2025 notice suspended it until 10 November 2026, and on 28 September 2026 MOFCOM said the Kuala Lumpur trade arrangement was extended to 10 January 2027 without naming Announcement No. 70, so no amending announcement was found as of 11 October 2026 and the 10 November 2026 date still stands on paper. The export controls register holds both entries.

Do water and permits decide who can produce?

Agreements with Corfo, Chile’s state development agency, cap Atacama production and sales at 405,914 tonnes of lithium metal equivalent (2,160,600 tonnes of LCE) through 2030, with about 60% used by 31 December 2025. In May 2024 a regional water directorate opened a sanctioning procedure over the Atacama ponds, still pending in SQM’s filing. Nova Andino Litio, the SQM and Codelco joint venture for the Salar de Atacama, was formed on 27 December 2025, subject to a condition subsequent, and SQM controls its management and majority of votes through 31 December 2030 (Form 20-F for 2025). In Argentina, Cauchari-Olaroz Stage 2 won approval in May 2026 under RIGI, a large-investment incentive regime (Lithium Argentina, 11 August 2026).

What if most conversion happens in one country?

PLS reported that customers in China gave 86.5% of its interim spodumene revenue, and the IEA put China’s refining share at almost 65% in 2023. Albemarle placed Kemerton Train 2 in Western Australia in care and maintenance in 2024 and announced the same step for Train 1 (above), and the POSCO Pilbara Lithium Solution plant in Gwangyang, South Korea, made 3,561 tonnes of hydroxide in the June 2026 quarter (PLS, 30 July 2026). The producing, exporting and processing guide explains why mining and conversion rank different countries first.

Follow the data

The lithium page lists producers, reserves and trade, and the price page charts the IMF series. The trade flows report maps the corridors, and how much is left sets 2025 USGS reserves of 37 million tonnes of lithium content beside 290,000 tonnes mined, a ratio of 127.6 years that predicts nothing: reserves include 4.4 million tonnes in the United States, while the production total excludes United States output, so the two scopes differ. The HS codes guide explains the headings above, and the glossary defines concentrate.

Nothing here is investment advice.

Prices are monthly benchmark averages that lag the market; informational only, not investment advice.