Market cap: US$10.66 billion
Share price: US$38.38

SQM has five business areas, ranging from lithium to potassium to specialty plant nutrition. Its primary lithium operations are in Chile, where it is a longtime producer, and it is working to bring production online in Australia as well.

In Chile, SQM sources brine from the Salar de Atacama; it then processes lithium chloride from the brine into lithium carbonate and hydroxide at its Salar del Carmen lithium plants near Antofagasta. SQM is expanding production at the Salar del Carmen from 180,000 MT to 210,000 MT starting this year. To help lessen its environmental impact, the company has announced it will invest US$1.5 billion into the Salar Futuro project, a technology upgrade that includes advanced evaporation technologies, direct lithium extraction and a seawater and desalination plant.

Chile's aforementioned National Lithium Strategy has created some uncertainty for SQM, but the government has stated it will respect its current contracts, which run through 2030. In early 2024, the Chilean government said that state-owned mining company Codelco and SQM have formed a "common partnership" in which Codelco will hold a 50 percent stake plus one share to give it majority control.

Outside of South America, SQM is developing the Mount Holland lithium project in Australia; the project is known as one of the world’s largest hard-rock deposits. Mount Holland is a joint venture with Wesfarmers (ASX:WES,OTC Pink:WFAFF), which took over Australian lithium-mining company Kidman Resources in 2019. The company stated in its 2022 annual report that it expects lithium hydroxide production to commence by H1 2025.

SQM said in November 2023 that its lithium carbonate capacity was set to reach 210,000 MT by the beginning of 2024.

In mid-June, SQM penned a long-term supply deal with Hyundai (KRX:005380) and Kia (KRX:000270) to provide lithium hydroxide for electric vehicle batteries. SQM, which already has supply agreements with Ford Motors (NYSE:F) and LG Energy (KRX:373220), said it will provide Hyundai and Kia with a portion of their future lithium hydroxide supply.

Market cap: US$10.27 billion
Share price: US$87.42

North Carolina-based Albemarle underwent a realignment in 2022, dividing the lithium company into two primary business units, one of which — the Albemarle Energy Storage unit — is focused wholly on the lithium-ion battery and energy transition markets. It includes the firm's lithium carbonate, hydroxide and metal production.

Albemarle has a broad portfolio of lithium mines and facilities, with extraction in Chile, Australia and the US. Looking first at Chile, Albemarle produces lithium carbonate at its La Negra lithium conversion plants, which process brine from the Salar de Atacama, the country’s largest salt flat. La Negra has been in operation since 1984 and now consists of three plants, with the latest, La Negra III/IV, coming online in 2022. The newest plant includes a thermal evaporator that reduces water consumption by up to 30 percent. Going forward, Albemarle is hoping to implement direct lithium extraction technology at the salt flat by 2028 or 2029, a move that would help further reduce water usage.

Albemarle’s Australian assets are both joint ventures. The company and Mineral Resources (ASX:MIN,OTC Pink:MALRF) own the MARBL joint venture, which owns and operates the Wodgina hard-rock lithium mine and on-site Kemerton lithium hydroxide facility in Western Australia. Albemarle previously held 60 percent interests in both Wodgina and Kemerton; now, following multiple changes to their joint venture agreement this year, the two companies each have 50 percent interests in Wodgina, and Albemarle has 100 percent ownership of Kemerton. The company’s other Australian joint venture is the aforementioned Greenbushes mine, in which it holds a 49 percent interest alongside Tianqi and IGO.

As for the US, Albemarle is working to expand its role in domestic production and processing in line with the government’s Inflation Reduction Act. The company owns the Silver Peak lithium brine operations in Nevada's Clayton Valley, which is currently the country’s only source of lithium production; it plans to double the site’s lithium production by 2025.

In September 2023, Albemarle received a US$90 million critical materials award from the US Department of Defense to boost its domestic lithium production and support the country's burgeoning EV battery supply chain.

In its home state of North Carolina, Albemarle is planning to bring its past-producing Kings Mountain lithium mine back online, subject to permitting approval and a final investment decision. In late 2022, Albemarle received US$150 million in funding from the US government to support the building of a commercial-scale lithium concentrator facility on site. This lithium would then supply the company’s planned lithium hydroxide Mega-Flex facility, which will be nearby in Chester County, South Carolina. It is also developing the upcoming Albemarle Technology Park in North Carolina, which will serve as an advanced R&D facility for the acceleration of lithium innovation.

In early June of this year, Albemarle unveiled its project plan for the proposed mine to the community. The mine is expected to produce around 420,000 MT of lithium-bearing spodumene concentrate annually.

Market cap: US$6.72 billion
Share price: 25.82 Chinese yuan

Tianqi Lithium, a subsidiary of Chengdu Tianqi Industry Group, is the world’s largest hard-rock lithium producer. The company has assets in Australia, Chile and China. It holds a significant stake in SQM — Tianqi paid US$209.6 million for a 2.1 percent stake in SQM in September 2016, which it then boosted to 23.77 percent for US$4.07 billion in 2018.

In Australia, Tianqi has the Greenbushes mine, which it acquired in 2012 when it purchased Talison Lithium, beating out Rockwood Holdings. However, it subsequently sold a 49 percent interest in Talison to Rockwood, which, as mentioned, is now owned by Albemarle. The company also developed a lithium hydroxide plant in the Kwinana Industrial Area south of Perth in Western Australia. The facility launched production in Q3 2019, and first output took place in mid-2021.

Ownership of Greenbushes became further divided in 2020, when Tianqi sold a stake in its Australian assets to IGO in a US$1.4 billion deal, giving a boost to the then financially troubled Chinese company. The deal gave IGO a 25 percent interest in Greenbushes and a 49 percent interest in Kwinana.

Rising lithium prices later helped further buoy Tianqi, which listed in Hong Kong in 2022, raising about US$1.7 billion in its debut. Commercial production at Kwinana began in December 2022 from Train 1 of the facility, and Train 2 is expected to be commissioned in 2024. The hydroxide plant is being fed by lithium from Greenbushes, and should have a production capacity of 48,000 MT per year once both trains are online.

In February this year, Tianqi Lithium updated its total mineral resources at Greenbushes to 447 million MT with the average grade of lithium oxide at 1.5 percent, or approximately 16 million MT of lithium carbonate equivalent.

Market cap: US$6.29 billion
Share price: US$2.09

Founded in 2000 and listed in 2010, Ganfeng Lithium has operations across the entire electric vehicle battery supply chain. Even though it is relatively new compared to some on the list, the company has become one of the world’s largest producers of both lithium metals and lithium hydroxide. This is due to its strategy of investing heavily in overseas projects to secure long-term lithium resources, with its first coming in 2014.

Ganfeng now has interests in lithium resources around the world, from Australia to Argentina, China and Ireland; its operations include a 50/50 joint venture with Mineral Resources (ASX:MIN,OTC Pink:MALRF) for the Mount Marion mine in Western Australia.

In the last half decade alone, Ganfeng has made multiple significant deals. As mentioned, in 2018, the company bought SQM’s stake in Lithium Americas’ Caucharí-Olaroz lithium brine project in Argentina, and two years later it upped its interest in Caucharí-Olaroz to 51 percent, taking a controlling stake in the asset.

In 2021, Ganfeng continued to expand. The company agreed to buy the shares it did not already own in Mexico-focused Bacanora Lithium for US$264.5 million; it also bought a 50 percent stake in a lithium mine in Mali for US$130 million, as well as a 49 percent stake in a salt lake project in China owned by China Minmetals for 1.47 billion yuan. The company continued its purchasing spree in 2022 when it bought private company LitheA, which owns the rights to two lithium salt lakes in Argentina's Salta province, for US$962 million.

In May 2023, Ganfeng entered into a cooperation agreement with Leo Lithium (ASX:LLL,OTC Pink:LLLAF). The giant invested AU$106.1 million into Leo, which will go toward ramping up the latter company's Goulamina project in Mali. Ganfeng now holds a 9.9 percent interest in the company.

Ganfeng has supply deals with companies such as Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), BMW (OTC Pink:BMWYY,ETR:BMW), Korean battery maker LG Chem (KRX:051910), Volkswagen (OTC Pink:VLKAF,FWB:VOW) and Hyundai.

Market cap: US$5.83 billion
Share price: AU$2.90

Pilbara Minerals operates its 100 percent owned Pilgangoora lithium-tantalum asset in Western Australia, which achieved commercial production in 2019. The operation consists of two processing plants: the Pilgan plant, located on the northern side of the Pilgangoora area, which produces a spodumene concentrate and a tantalite concentrate; and the Ngungaju plant, located to the south, which produces a spodumene concentrate.

In 2021, the company acquired Altura Lithium following a cash payment of US$155 million. Pilbara has partnerships with Ganfeng Lithium, General Lithium, Great Wall Motor Company (OTC Pink:GWLLF,HKEX:2333), POSCO (NYSE:PKX), CATL (SZSE:300750) and Yibin Tianyi. In the December quarter of 2023, Pilbara announced commissioning activities at its South Korean-based lithium hydroxide processing plant, a joint venture with partner POSCO. Early in 2024, Pilbara extended its offtake agreements with Gangeng and Chengxin Lithium Group.

Pilbara is currently working on multiple expansion projects at Pilgangoora. Its P680 expansion is for a primary rejection facility and a crushing and ore-sorting facility; while the P1000 expansion is targeting a spodumene production increase at the site to 1 million MT per year.

In August 2023, Pilbara and its joint venture partner Calix made a final investment decision to develop a midstream demonstration plant at Pilgangoora for value-added lithium output. Using Calix's electric kiln technology, the plant's goals include "decarbonising spodumene processing, decreasing transport volumes and improving value-add processing at the mine site." The plant is on track to reach initial production in the June quarter of the company's 2025 fiscal year.

Pilbara completed a pre-feasibility study in June 2024 at its Pilgangoora operation demonstrating that an expansion project could provide an average of 1.9 million MT of spodumene concentrate per year for the first 10 years, including more than 2 million MT per year over the first six years after ramp up.

This August, the company made a move to expand its footprint in Brazil with a pending acquisition of Latin Resources (ASX:LRS,OTC Pink:LRSRF) and its Salinas lithium project. The project's resource estimate, which covers the Colina and Fog's Block deposits, stands at 77.7 million MT at 1.24 percent lithium oxide. If approved, the potential AU$560 million deal could close by late November or early December.

Market cap: US$4.98 billion
Share price: AU$38.33

Australia-based Mineral Resources (MinRes) is a commodities company mining lithium and iron ore in the country. As mentioned, both of MinRes’ lithium mines are joint ventures with other companies on this list.

MinRes owns 50 percent of the Mount Marion lithium operation, which is a joint venture with Ganfeng Lithium. The joint venture was originally between MinRes and NeoMetals (ASX:NMT,OTC Pink:RRSSF) when it commenced in 2009, but the agreement changed over the years, eventually becoming the 50/50 agreement with Ganfeng that it is today. Production of lithium concentrate began at Mount Marion in 2017 and all mining is managed by MinRes, which also has a 51 percent share of the output from the spodumene concentrator at the site.

In June 2023, MinRes and Ganfeng mutually terminated their agreement to convert spodumene concentrate from Mount Marion into lithium battery chemicals, although MinRes will continue to sell its spodumene to Ganfeng. The company completed the expansion of Mount Marion's processing plant last year, and recently reported increased lithium production as it ramped up activities in the first half of its FY 2024.

The company’s also has the Wodgina mine in Western Australia, which is operated under the MARBL joint venture with Albemarle. Put on care and maintenance in 2019, Wodgina was restarted by the joint venture and entered production in May 2022. The Kemerton lithium hydroxide plant reached mechanical completion in late 2022.

As explained, the two companies restructured the MARBL joint venture in February 2023. Under the new terms, MinRes owns 50 percent of Wodgina, up from 40 percent. The restructure originally saw Albemarle up its interest in the Kemerton plants from 60 percent to 85 percent, but in July 2023 it was amended to 100 percent in exchange for a payment of around US$400 million. In addition, MinRes acquired a 50 percent stake in the Qinzhou and Meishan plants from Albemarle.

Wodgina reached a record 10,700 MT of lithium battery chemicals sold in the first half of MinRes' financial year 2024.

In late August, Mineral Resources decided to weather the storm of lithium's low demand environment by reducing its operations at Mount Marion to between 1,50,000 and 170,000 MT of spodumene production in its financial year (FY) 2025 compared to the 218,000 MT of output achieved in FY 2024.

In late 2023, Mineral Resources acquired the Bald Hill lithium mine, which is also located in Western Australia. According to the company's Q3 2024 results released in April, the mine's first full quarter of production yielded 30,000 dry metric tons of spodumene concentrate. In Q4 2024, that figure came in at 35,000 dry metric tons.

Market cap: US$2.61 billion
Share price: US$2.10

Arcadium Lithium was formed in January 2024 following the US$10.6 billion merger of equals between Allkem and Livent. Both a lithium miner and lithium processor, this vertically integrated company’s business model spans hard-rock mining, conventional pond based brine extraction, direct lithium brine extraction (DLE) and lithium chemicals manufacturing.

Its broad range of lithium chemicals products target the growing demand for portable electronics, electric vehicles and large-scale energy storage. Aside from that, Arcadium Lithium has operating resources in Argentina and Australia, as well as downstream conversion assets in the United States, China, Japan and the United Kingdom. Multiple development projects are underway in Argentina and Canada. In North Carolina, the company operates the only integrated high-purity lithium mine-to-metal production facility in the Western Hemisphere.

For 2024, Arcadium plans to increase its lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide production by 40 percent to between 50,000 MT and 54,000 MT of lithium carbonate equivalent. It is ramping up lithium carbonate expansion activities at several assets including its Olaroz and Fénix brine operations in Argentina.

However, there will be reduced spodumene production at Mt. Cattlin in Australia due to lower lithium prices. Hard rock lithium operations typically have lower margins than brine. In early September, Arcadium announced it plans to "suspend Stage 4A waste stripping and any expansionary investment beyond Stage 3." The company will also move to place Mt Cattlin into care and maintenance by the end of H1 2025 following the completion of Stage 3 mining and ore processing.