Biden's support for EVs opens a door for Australian lithium
Australian lithium miners are defying economic convention and looking to process their ore onshore. And it all stems from the US Inflation Reduction Act.
Lithium miner IGO’s decision to develop its second processing facility onshore in WA rather than in another country shows that Australia is not at a competitive disadvantage when it comes to moving further up the EV value chain.
Despite having some ramp up issues at the first train of its Kwinana lithium hydroxide facility, the ASX 100 miner and its joint venture partner China’s Tianqi Lithium are pressing ahead with a front-end-engineering-design study for a second train at the site. Future plans include eventually adding a third and fourth train.
IGO chief executive Matt Dusci said at its full-year results on Thursday that it expects the first train to produce 50% of its nameplate capacity sometime in 2024. Dusci said the miner would take a “cautious approach to continue to expand our downstream [lithium processing] within our [JV].”
The company would only consider expanding into offshore processing if it were outside of China, but this is not on the cards for now, Dusci added.
