[defrost]

For some sound figures, see the 25 years of lithium production graphic here [1] Australia is responsible for twice the seperated end product as Chile which itself produces twice that of China (2021).

Half of Australias 55.4 ktonnes of production (REO) comes from Mt Weld ( 240,000 tonnes per annum of ore to produce up to 66,000 tonnes per annum of concentrate containing 26,500 tonnes of REO ) [2].

Mt Weld Australia ships its concentrate to the world’s largest single rare earths processing plant in Malaysia[3].

These figures rather undercut the assertion that:

> If you look at industry statistics, 90% of lithium refinement is done in China.

Can you link to the "industry statistics" that you are quoting? Thankyou.

[1] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/01/chart-countries-produ...

[2] https://lynasrareearths.com/about-us/locations/mt-weld-weste...

[3] https://lynasrareearths.com/

[panick21_]

Its really hard to find stats for refinement. I thought I had seen 90%, but I do not remember where. Your [1] seems to suggest its only 60%. So I might have been wrong on that.

[defrost]

My [1] states that :

    [ China ] also hosts 60% of the world’s lithium refining capacity for batteries.

AND states that :

    Batteries == 74% of total lithium usage

So that's 60 % of 74 % of global refining capacity (I'll leave the math for you)

That's also a tad out of date as it fails to account for post 2020 refining plants and the coming changes as proposed plants (eg: Musk's super Texas plant) lay ground and get built to start production in (?) near future.

[panick21_]

You need lithium refinement not just for batteries. You don't need lithium as poor for other applications, but its still has to be refined. So its more like 60% of all global lithium refinement.

China has less % of that in terms of battery materials production, as that is also very common in South Korea and Japan.

> and the coming changes as proposed plants

Yeah but its not only the rest of the world that has plans. Lithium refinement capacity in China is also growing.

Partly why Tesla is building the refinement plant is because of Chinas dominance.

[defrost]

> So its more like 60% of all global lithium refinement.

This is poor reasoning.

> Lithium refinement capacity in China is also growing.

Falling in a relative sense, particularly now that the movement globally is against offshoring the filthy end of rare earth semi conductor, solar, battery, etc production to China.

China's dominance of REO production came as a result of a practice of shipping global concentrates to China .. in a production sense these are relatively low tonnages (dwarfed by iron ore etc shipping) .. and with large plants planned outside of China (eg the one linked above in Malaysia) there is now will be significant competition | options for locations where concentrates can be refined.