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Ranked: Top 25 Nations Producing Battery Metals for the EV Supply Chain

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How to Use: Click the arrows on the left/right to navigate between current and projected rankings.

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The Role of Mining in the EV Battery Supply Chain

Batteries are one of the most important and expensive components of electric vehicles (EVs). The vast majority of EVs use lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries, which harness the properties of minerals and elements to power the vehicles. But batteries do not grow on trees—the raw materials for them, known as “battery metals”, have to be mined and refined.

The above graphic uses data from BloombergNEF to rank the top 25 countries producing the raw materials for Li-ion batteries.

Battery Metals: The Critical Raw Materials for EV Batteries

The raw materials that batteries use can differ depending on their chemical compositions. However, there are five battery minerals that are considered critical for Li-ion batteries:

  • Cobalt
  • Graphite
  • Lithium
  • Manganese
  • Nickel

Miners extract these minerals from economically viable deposits and refine them from their raw forms into high-quality products and chemicals for EV batteries.

The Top 25 Nations Supplying Battery Metals

Some countries are more crucial than others to the battery metal supply chain. BloombergNEF ranked the top 25 countries according to the following methodology:

  1. First, they tallied the mineral resources, mining capacity, and refining capacity in 2020 and projected commissioned capacity by 2025 for the five key metals listed above in each country.
  2. Then, to determine the overall score for each country, BloombergNEF categorized the countries’ capacities into five bands. Countries in the lowest band received a score of 1 and those in the highest band received a score of 5.
  3. The overall score is the result of averaging the scores across the five categories for each country.

Now that we have a better understanding of how the rankings work, here are the top 25 nations for raw materials in the Li-ion supply chain in 2020 and 2025.

Country2020 Rank2025 Projected RankChange in Rank
China110
Australia220
Brazil37-4
Canada43+1
South Africa54+1
Chile64+2
Indonesia74+3
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)810-2
India913-4
Philippines913-4
Finland1110+1
Japan128+4
Argentina128+4
Mexico12120
U.S.1513+2
Vietnam1617-1
South Korea1716+1
Germany1722-5
U.K.17170
France17170
Czech Republic17170
Sweden2217+5
Poland22220
Hungary22220
Thailand22220

China’s dominance in the rankings shows that refining capacity is just as important, if not more, as access to raw materials and mining capacity.

China does not boast an abundance of battery metal deposits but ranks first largely due to its control over 80% of global raw material refining capacity. Additionally, China is the world’s largest producer of graphite, the primary anode material for Li-ion batteries.

Australia comes in at number two due to its massive lithium production capacity and nickel reserves. Following Australia is Brazil, one of the world’s top 10 producers of graphite, nickel, manganese, and lithium.

On the other end of the spectrum, Poland, Hungary, Sweden, and Thailand are tied at rank 22. However, it’s important to note that these are among the top 10 countries for cell and component manufacturing—the next step in the lithium-ion battery supply chain.

Countries on the Rise

Sweden’s rank rises five places between 2020 and 2025p, largely due to an expected increase in its mining capacity with nickel and graphite projects in the pipeline. Argentina is projected to jump up to eighth place thanks to its massive lithium resources and multiple mining projects in advanced stages.

Moreover, Japan is projected to move up four places with its first lithium hydroxide refining plant under construction. In addition, Japanese miner Sumitomo Metal Mining is planning to double battery metal production by 2028.

Although China will likely maintain its dominance for the foreseeable future, other countries are ramping up their mining and refining capacities. Given the increasing importance of EVs, it will be interesting to see how the battery metals supply chain evolves going forward.

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Electrification

Will Direct Lithium Extraction Disrupt the $90B Lithium Market?

Visual Capitalist and EnergyX explore how direct lithium extraction could disrupt the $90B lithium industry.

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Will Direct Lithium Extraction Disrupt the $90B Lithium Market?

Current lithium extraction and refinement methods are outdated, often harmful to the environment, and ultimately inefficient. So much so that by 2030, lithium demand will outstrip supply by a projected 1.42 million metric tons. But there is a solution: Direct lithium extraction (DLE).

For this graphic, we partnered with EnergyX to try to understand how DLE could help meet global lithium demands and change an industry that is critical to the clean energy transition.

The Lithium Problem

Lithium is crucial to many renewable energy technologies because it is this element that allows EV batteries to react. In fact, it’s so important that projections show the lithium industry growing from $22.2B in 2023 to nearly $90B by 2030.

But even with this incredible growth, as you can see from the table, refined lithium production will need to increase 86.5% over and above current projections.

2022 (million metric tons)2030P (million metric tons)
Lithium Carbonate Demand0.461.21
Lithium Hydroxide Demand0.181.54
Lithium Metal Demand00.22
Lithium Mineral Demand0.070.09
Total Demand0.713.06
Total Supply0.751.64

The Solution: Direct Lithium Extraction

DLE is a process that uses a combination of solvent extraction, membranes, or adsorbents to extract and then refine lithium directly from its source. LiTASTM, the proprietary DLE technology developed by EnergyX, can recover an incredible 300% more lithium per ton than existing processes, making it the perfect tool to help meet lithium demands.

Additionally, LiTASTM can refine lithium at the lowest cost per unit volume directly from brine, an essential step in meeting tomorrow’s lithium demand and manufacturing next-generation batteries, while significantly reducing the footprint left by lithium mining.

Hard Rock MiningUnderground ReservoirsDirect Lithium Extraction
Direct CO2 Emissions15,000 kg5,000 kg3.5 kg
Water Use170 m3469 m334-94 m3
Lithium Recovery Rate58%30-40%90%
Land Use464 m23124 m20.14 m2
Process TimeVariable18 months1-2 days

Providing the World with Lithium

DLE promises to disrupt the outdated lithium industry by improving lithium recovery rates and slashing emissions, helping the world meet the energy demands of tomorrow’s electric vehicles.

EnergyX is on a mission to become a worldwide leader in the sustainable energy transition using groundbreaking direct lithium extraction technology. Don’t miss your chance to join companies like GM and invest in EnergyX to transform the future of renewable energy.

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Electrification

Chart: The $400 Billion Lithium Battery Value Chain

In this graphic, we break down where the $400 billion lithium battery industry will generate revenue in 2030.

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EnergyX_Breaking-Down-the-Battery-Value-Chain

Breaking Down the $400 Billion Battery Value Chain

As the world transitions away from fossil fuels toward a greener future, the lithium battery industry could grow fivefold by 2030. This shift could create over $400 billion in annual revenue opportunities globally.

For this graphic, we partnered with EnergyX to determine how the battery industry could grow by 2030.

Exploring the Battery Value Chain

The lithium battery value chain has many links within it that each generate their own revenue opportunities, these include:

  • Critical Element Production: Involves the mining and refining of materials used in a battery’s construction.
  • Active materials: Creating and developing materials that react electrochemically to allow batteries to charge and discharge.
  • Battery cells: Involves the production of rechargeable elements of a battery.
  • Battery packs: Producing packs containing a series of connected battery cells. Generally, these come in two types: NMC/NMCA, the standard in North America and Europe, and LFP, the standard in China.
  • Recycling: Reusing battery components within new batteries.

But these links aren’t equal, each one is projected to generate different levels of revenue by 2030:

China 🇨🇳Europe 🇪🇺United States 🇺🇸Rest of World 🌍
Total$184B$118B$62B$39B
Critical Element Production$37B$25B$15B$8B
Active Materials$54B$31B$14B$11B
Battery Packs$34B$22B$11B$7B
Battery Cells$53B$37B$20B$11B
Recycling$6B$3B$2B$2B

On the surface, battery cell production may contribute the most revenue to the battery value chain. However, lithium production can generate margins as high as 65%, meaning lithium production has potential to yield large margins.

How Much Lithium Is Available?

Just a few countries hold 81% of the world’s viable lithium. So, supply bottlenecks could slow the growth of the lithium battery industry:

NationViable Lithium Reserves (2023)
Chile 🇨🇱9.3M t
Australia 🇦🇺6.2M t
Argentina 🇦🇷2.7M t
China 🇨🇳2M t
U.S. 🇺🇸1M t
Rest of World 🌍4.9M t

Supplying the World With Batteries

Supplying the world with lithium is critical to the battery value chain and a successful transition from fossil fuels. Players like the U.S. and the EU, with increasingly large and growing lithium needs, will need to maximize local opportunities and work together to meet demand.

EnergyX is on a mission to become a world leader in the global transition to sustainable energy, using cutting-edge direct lithium extraction to help supply the world with lithium.

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