{"id":1137677,"date":"2019-09-11T05:36:11","date_gmt":"2019-09-11T10:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/?p=1001608"},"modified":"2019-09-11T05:36:11","modified_gmt":"2019-09-11T10:36:11","slug":"tianqi-puts-worlds-biggest-lithium-plant-expansion-on-hold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=1137677","title":{"rendered":"Tianqi puts world\u2019s biggest lithium plant expansion on hold"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Chinese lithium miner Tianqi, one of the world\u2019s top producers of the white metal, has shelved plans to complete a second phase expansion at the world\u2019s largest lithium hydroxide plant as an oversupply of the commodity continues to drive down prices.<\/p>\n<div class='d-flex justify-content-center'>\n<div id='div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0'><script>googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0');});<\/script><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The company, which officially opened<br \/>\nup the first stage of its Kwinana plant on Tuesday, said the decision was made to<br \/>\nfocus on completing the facility\u2019s initial phase rather than as a response to<br \/>\nmarket conditions.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We just had so many people on site and so much construction activity happening that we really wanted to just focus on getting stage one complete (\u2026) That happened at the same time as the market has softened a little,\u201d Tianqi Australia\u2019s general manager, Phil Thick, said.<\/p>\n<p>At full production, Kwinana is expected to produce 48,000 tonnes of battery-grade lithium hydroxide a year, treating spodumene concentrate coming from Tianqi\u2019s half-owned <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/tianqi-injects-382-million-greenbushes-lithium-mine-expand\/\" >Greenbushes mine<\/a>, south-east of Perth.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The facility is a major step for Western<br \/>\nAustralia which has struggled to attract and develop secondary processing<br \/>\nopportunities for the billions of dollars of minerals mined across the state.<\/p>\n<p>Lithium, one of the key ingredient for<br \/>\nbatteries that power electric vehicles (EVs) and high tech devices, was Western<br \/>\nAustralia\u2019s sixth largest mine production in 2018.<\/p>\n<p>News of the delay comes after Tianqi and Albemarle Corp (NYSE: ALB), the world\u2019s No. 1 lithium miner, last month <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/albemarle-puts-the-break-on-growing-plans-amid-lithium-market-weakness\/\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">postponed a planned expansion of their Greenbushe<\/a>s lithium project.<\/p>\n<p>The US-based lithium giant also revised a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/mineral-resources-signs-1-15b-lithium-deal-albemarle\/\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">deal to buy into Australia\u2019s Mineral Resources<\/a>\u2019 (ASX: MIN) Wodgina lithium mine and said it would delay building 75,000 tonnes of processing capacity at Kemerton, also in Australia.<\/p>\n<p>Chile\u2019s Chemical and Mining Society (SQM), the world\u2019s second largest lithium producer,\u00a0has also shown the impact of weak prices. Last month, it <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/worlds-no-2-lithium-miner-sqm-hit-by-weak-prices\/\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">posted a 47.5% drop in profit<\/a> to $70.2 million during the second quarter of this year, from $133.9 million in 2018.<\/p>\n<p>Prices for lithium carbonate, the most common type used in EV batteries, doubled over 2016 and 2017. Since then, they have fallen by more than 40% over the past year, to around $9.25 per kg at the end of July. <\/p>\n<p>The sharp drop has been driven by an \u201cavalanche\u201d of new supply and China\u2019s changes to its subsidies to EV makers, commodity research group <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/lithium-prices-to-remain-low-as-hype-has-met-reality-cru\/\" >CRU said in August<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>Australian producers, which account for nearly half of the world\u2019s mined lithium supply, have said they don\u2019t expect a significant market improvement through year-end. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tianqi poured cold water on celebrations to mark the start of production from the first stage at its Kwinana plant in Western Australia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1016,2849,949,369,4,2640],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1137677"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1137677"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1137677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1137679,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1137677\/revisions\/1137679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1137677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1137677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1137677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}