Lithium Australia is engaged in construction of a pilot plant

Lithium Australia introduced its new project. The company announced the construction of a pilot plant. His work is focused on the extraction of lithium without prior annealing. Obtaining metal from spodumene concentrate will be conducted in a private technology company SiLeach. Estimated value of the experimental enterprise is 42 million USD. Its estimated annual production capacity will reach about 2.5 thousand tons of carbonate of lithium. This volume reaches 10% of full planned capacity of the enterprise. Lithium Australia expects to resolve all financial issues in the next few months. The construction of the plant will begin before the end of this year. It should be noted that you plan to use the technology company SiLeach was tested only in the laboratory. The pilot project will allow us to widely introduce it into the industry. The company plans to extract the mine dumps of lithium. In Australia Lithium intends to produce its own minerals.

The company has made its assessment of operating cost carbonate lithium. Taking into account the application on an industrial scale a new technology, it will reach about 10 thousand USD/ton. The income from the side products is not considered. Today in China cost carbonate lithium exceeds 20 thousand USD/ton. This metal is widely used in the production of current sources. Accordingly, the demand for it is rising rapidly.

Meanwhile, analysts predict that in 2018, the shortage of lithium will decrease. In the future, as the supply will outpace demand for the metal. It is assumed that the peak supply will be in 2022. During this period, the size of the surplus will reach about 25% of the total consumption of lithium in the world.