Greenbushes mine

The Greenbushes mine is the world's largest hard rock lithium mine in terms of reserves, resources, production, and capacity. However, projections show that the Greenbushes mine may be the first site where hard-rock mining is as cost effective and profitable as brine mining, as the processing will take place next to the extraction site. In January 2024 production was scaled down as the market for lithium deteriorated in the face of weak electric vehicle uptake. Processing facilities The twin processing facilities nearby (Albemarle's Kemerton plant and Tianqi's Kwinana plant, located in nearby Kemerton and Kwinana, respectively) are currently under construction. The facility is also the first hard-rock sourced lithium chemical manufacturing facility outside of China. The Kwinana facility was due to be completed by 2019 however, due to financial constraints of their parent Tianqi and the COVID-19 outbreak have seen it still awaiting the commencement of production . Albemarle has recently announced that they have delayed the start of construction of their Kemerton plant and have scaled back growth plans due to lithium growing pains. == Greenbushes lithium deposit ==

The Greenbushes deposit contains the highest-grade quality lithium spodumene in the world. The recently discovered nearby Kapanga deposit is described as, The mine is estimated to have resources of LCE and reserves of LCE. The mine sets a chemical-grade specifications benchmark of 6.0% minimum and 0.8% maximum. == Ownership ==

The mine was bought by Tianqi Lithium Corporation in 2013. However, Tianqi soon came into financial difficulties and was forced to offload the minority stake in the mine to the competing bidder, the American-based Albemarle Corporation in 2014. The 49% owner, Albemarle Corporation is based in Charlotte, North Carolina, and is one of the world's largest lithium producers. The majority owner, Tianqi Lithium Corporation, is based in Chengdu, China, and is listed on the Shanghai stock exchange. , the company controls more than 46% of the world's global production of lithium. Tianqi Lithium Corporation is the second largest lithium company in the world by revenue and the largest in China. The entity Windfield Holdings (51% ownership) was established to purchase the mine and later 49% of its stock was sold. Windfield wholly owns Talison Lithium, the entity that owns and operates the Greenbushes mine. Similarly, Albemarle owns their 49% stake in Windfield through an entity known as RT Lithium. The mine was originally owned and built by Talison Lithium that has been operating for over 128 years mining tin, tantalum, and lithium. The mine has been producing lithium concentrates for over 20 years, since 1983 when it became the world's first company to produce lithium concentrates from a hard-rock facility. The lithium production industry is dominated by only four companies – Talison, SQM, Albemarle and FMC. Geographically, Australia, China and Chile also account for about 85% of global lithium production. == Recent events ==

The joint venture partnership has come into turmoil recently due to Tianqi Corporation's financial problems, exhibited in part by the fact that in March 2020, MSP Engineering took Tianqi Lithium Kwinanathe entity that operates the Kwinana processing facility to the Supreme Court of Western Australia with a lawsuit claiming unpaid invoices of . Part of Tianqi's problems emerged from their recent purchase of 20% of Chilean lithium producer SQM. They did, however, postpone the final investment decision on their Mount Holland lithium project to build a per annum lithium hydroxide processing facility Albemarle has recently announced that they have delayed the start of construction of their Kemerton plant and have scaled back growth plans due to lithium growing pains. As such lithium mining has proved less profitable than mining for other minerals that are also inputs for batteries such as cobalt. Lithium is also relatively more abundant than other minerals that are seeing similar growth in demand. The Kwinana facility was due to be completed by 2019, however due to financial constraints of their parent Tianqi and the COVID-19 outbreak has seen it still awaiting the commencement of production as of the end of 2020. == References ==