Energy News Monitoring

Aenert news. Energy resources and infrastructure
In January of this year, U.S. The Geological Survey has published a report on the state of lithium resources and production in 2023. In addition, previous data for 2022 have been updated. Information on lithium production in the USA is still not provided. According to the presented materials, global lithium resources reached 105 million tons, having increased by a little more than 7% over the year. As a year earlier, the largest lithium resources are concentrated in Bolivia and Argentina - 23 and 22 million tons, respectively. In each of these countries, resources increased by 2 million tons last year. Global lithium reserves also increased significantly to 28 million tons from 26 million tons a year earlier. The greatest contribution to this process was made by Argentina, where reserves increased by 900 thousand tons, and Brazil, which added 140 thousand tons. A serious decrease in reserves occurred in China - by more than 30% - to 2 million tons. More information about the world's lithium resources and reserves can be found on the map below.

Map of global lithium production and reserves



The past year has been productive in terms of reports of the discovery of new lithium deposits. New large-scale lithium resources have been discovered in the USA, Iran, India, and Afghanistan. Thus, preliminary estimates of lithium volumes in Nevada/Oregon USA were in the range of 20 – 40 million tons. Obviously, these are very, very superficial estimates that will be significantly adjusted downward. However, the current level of lithium reserves in the United States is just over one million tons. Already this year, a lot of noise has been made by reports from Thailand, where lithium deposits in the composition of mineral raw materials with a volume of almost 15 million tons were found in the Phang Nga province. Later, a government spokeswoman clarified that we were talking about the total volume of the lepidolite mineral, which contains only 0.45% lithium oxide.

Global lithium production parameters (excluding the US) are presented in the chart below. In 2023, 180,000 thousand tons of lithium were produced, which is 23% more than the year before. Confident growth in production volumes was demonstrated by all major producers - Australia, Chile, China, Argentina.

Lithium. Global mine production and reserves


Sources: U.S. Geological Survey

The growth in production volumes has continued for four years in a row.

The past year was a year of catastrophic fall in prices for the main raw materials - lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide. For example, the price of lithium carbonate has collapsed sixfold from nearly 600,000 yuan per metric ton in November 2022 to less than 100,000 yuan at the end of 2023. Many analysts attribute this to the slowdown in sales of electric vehicles, although speculative manipulation may have played an equally important role. Most likely, prices will stabilize at current levels over the next few years, as participants will be wary of making aggressive forecasts given the dramatic year 2023.

Lithium carbonate prices



By the Editorial Board