China’s Ganfeng Lithium Grabs Lion’s Share in US Storage Project

A large-scale lithium storage site was discovered in a volcanic crater on the border of Nevada and Oregon in the United States, as reported by Science.org on August 30, 2023. The number of storage sites spread around the Tracker Pass area is estimated to be between 20 and 40, with up to 120 million tons of lithium stored.

This lithium mine is a project of Lithium Nevada, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Lithium Americas, with China’s Ganfeng Lithium, the largest shareholder of Lithium Americas, as the principal investor. The exploration has been ongoing since 2007, and the discovery was made by a team from Columbia University, according to the scientific journal Science Advances.

It is known that the storage sites contain up to 2.4% lithium by weight, which is estimated to be more than previously recorded. The discovery site is the McDermitt Caldera, the Tracker Pass volcanic crater in northern Nevada.

Lithium is commonly found in brine and sediment from salt lakes, especially in Latin America, as well as in lithium-bearing silicate minerals and hard rock deposits. Therefore, it is referred to as a new type of lithium storage site.

The McDermitt Caldera is known to have various favorable factors, and the discovery team hopes that the knowledge gained from there will help find similar lithium storage sites (known as “caldera systems”) in other places in the medium term.

A high proportion of illite, a phyllosilicate mineral in which lithium is inserted between silica layers, was found in the McDermitt Caldera, according to geologists from Lithium Americas, and mining could start as early as 2026.

According to Scientific American, the reported storage capacity is claimed to be the largest in the world, but environmental conservationists have been trying to halt mining in this area due to concerns about violations of environmental laws and threats to vulnerable ecosystems.

As this area is sacred for local tribes, environmental conservationists have received support from Native American activists. The concerns mentioned include hasty environmental assessments, threats to important wildlife habitats, destruction of cultural heritage sites, and the association between resource extraction and the disappearance and murder of indigenous women.

According to Scientific American, although the storage capacity is currently the largest known in the world, it is believed that the lithium deposit in Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia, Europe’s largest lithium storage site, maybe even larger.

Governments worldwide are competing to find local lithium storage sites as part of their industrial policies to secure the battery materials supply chain in response to the global transition away from fossil fuels.

A prominent example is the dispute between Tesla and Core Lithium in Australia, which Tesla claimed to have secured. Australia is the largest lithium producer, and Tesla has threatened legal action against Core Lithium, an Australian producer if the issue caused by the failure of the lithium supply contract is not resolved. Meanwhile, Tesla is sourcing lithium from China’s Sichuan Yahua Industrial Group and recently renewed an additional lithium supply contract for electric vehicle batteries until 2030.

The lithium competition is causing new geopolitical movements worldwide. The largest lithium storage site in Europe, in the Donbas region of Ukraine, is currently inaccessible to European battery manufacturers due to ongoing Russian aggression in 2022. While lithium storage sites are beneficial for industrial activities in all countries, the extraction process is currently about 10 years ahead for Chinese companies compared to Europe and the United States.