The plan reflects Albemarle’s emerging strategy to lead America’s lithium renaissance, from mining development to processing and manufacturing the types of metal used to make high-end EV batteries.
Eric Norris, head of Albemarle’s lithium division, said the company has seen a major shift in the past nine months in the US with the announcement of an “unprecedented” number of VE, a harbinger that the company says will fuel a surge in lithium demand.
Accordingly, the company aims to build a processing plant with an annual capacity of 100,000 tons in the southeastern United States, somewhere near a major port, Norris said.
“(Lithium) supply is not yet sufficient to meet US ambitions,” Norris said at the Fastmarkets Lithium Supply and Battery Raw Materials conference in Phoenix, Arizona. “This (processing plant) will be essential for our success in the future.”
Albemarle is in active talks with automakers about purchasing supply from the facility, Norris said. Albemarle already supplies Tesla Inc, as well as several other major automakers.
While Albemarle had spoken vaguely in the past about building a processing plant in the United States, she used Monday’s conference to announce the specific plan and said it would be essential as the company aims to multiply its global lithium production capacity by five to reach 500,000 tons per year by 2030.
The US plant would be similar in design to a processing plant that Albemarle recently opened in Kemerton, Western Australia, although it is expected to cost less than Kemerton, whose costs have soared well beyond its original $1 target. .2 billion, Norris said.
Albemarle plans to self-finance the facility, although it may apply for loans from the US Department of Energy, he said.
The plant would be powered by lithium extracted from the company’s Kings Mountain mine in North Carolina, which is currently mothballed but could reopen as early as 2027.
The Kings Mountain facility would likely compete with a proposed lithium mine and processing complex in a neighboring North Carolina county from Piedmont Lithium Inc, which is facing regulatory and local opposition.
Unlike the Piedmont mine, Kings Mountain would be the reopening of a facility that closed in the 1980s, a distinction that Norris says should work in Albemarle’s favor.
“This is an existing mine in a town that is very mining oriented,” Norris said. “We are very present in the community”.
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