(Bloomberg) -- Albemarle Corp. is aiming to spend between $1.25 billion and $1.5 billion to double its lithium hydroxide output in Australia to a volume that it estimates could power more than two million electric cars a year.
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The US battery-material giant plans to build two additional processing trains at its Kemerton plant south of Perth in Western Australia, which could boost its lithium hydroxide production by 50,000 tons annually, the company said in a statement Wednesday. The new trains, wholly owned by Albemarle, will process spodumene ore from the Greenbushes mine, a top global source of lithium.
The latest expansion comes as Albemarle has been boosting output and investing in new facilities to meet rising long-term demand for EV batteries. It’s also striving to comply with President Joe Biden’s push to ensure suppliers favor production in the US or its free-trade partners. Earlier this year it made an unsuccessful bid for Perth-based’s Liontown Resources Ltd. for $3.7 billion.
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The company’s joint venture with Australia’s Mineral Resources Ltd. has two existing processing trains at the plant that were completed last year at a cost of about $1 billion. Operating at full capacity, the Kemerton plant would process up to 100,000 tons of lithium hydroxide a year.
Lithium is expected to be under-supplied over “the next 10 years, so we need to increase capacity,” Kevin Chan, Albemarle’s Asia-Pacific vice president of lithium commercial, said at a Singapore conference Tuesday.
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