Lithium Prices Shot up 400% Last Year, Fuelling Expansion Plans in the Industry

lithium prices
Published on: May 18, 2022
Author: Philip Tai

Rapidly rising oil prices and the global market’s acceptance of EVs helped shoot lithium prices up 400% in 2021 and 2022 is showing that lithium prices will likely continue to rise.  As demand from battery makers, EV manufacturers and utility scale energy storage system developers grows, a number of players have decided to expand their mining operations and even acquire new land packages that contain this valuable metal.

What’s Happened in 2022 for Lithium?

How did the price index for lithium hydroxide increase more than 400 percent over the past year and what’s happening in 2022?  A couple of recent developments might give us a better picture.

  • The rise of Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries


  • Chinese demand surging

  • Chronic underinvestment in the industry form 2018 to 2021

Industry Expansion Plans a No-Brainer

As prices for lithium surge and the demand for battery products is seeing a long horizon, lithium miners and explorers are looking at expansion.

Just weeks away from its first production, American chemicals company Albemarle is considering a major expansion of its Kemerton refinery 200 kilometres south of Perth, with plans for a 1,000-bed capacity workers’ village.

Local site director at Kemerton, Daniel O’Shea, was quoted as saying that the company was looking at building a third and fourth processing train. “We’re actually looking at the next wave of growth investments that Albemarle can undertake, and included in that is trains three and four at site,” he said.

Since March, Ablemarle’s stock price (NYSE:ALB) have shot up over 31%.

ALB-stock

United Lithium Announces Nearly 40 Square Kilometers Land Acquisitions in South Dakota

United Lithium Corp. (CSE: ULTH; OTC: ULTHF; FWB: 0ULA), an exploration mining company, is focused on exploring and developing lithium assets in safe jurisdictions.  

Already exploring assets in Finland, Sweden and Canada, the company announced early in May that it had staked a large land position in an historic lithium-beryllium producing area near Custer, South Dakota. A famous lithium producing district, the Custer and Keystone areas in the Black Hills of South Dakota produced large amounts of lithium in the 1940s and 1950s. Records have shown that nearly 200,000 tonnes of lithium was mined and recovered from the Black Hills during this time.

ULTH staked over 500 unpatented lode claims covering nearly 40 square kilometers in the west and southwest parts of the Black Hills. 

Learn more about ULTH’s new South Dakota claims here.

Disclaimer: The company described in this article is a customer of NAI Interactive Ltd. This material is for informational purposes only and is not intended as a recommendation or offer or solicitation for the purchase or sale of any securities or financial instruments, or for transactions involving any financial instrument or trading strategy.

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