Electrification
The World’s Top 10 Lithium Mining Companies
The World’s Top 10 Lithium Mining Companies
Battery demand for electric vehicles, energy storage systems, and portable electronic devices is propelling lithium mining around the planet.
As a result, worldwide lithium production increased by 21% in 2021 compared to 2020 to approximately 100,000 metric tons.
The above infographic lists the world’s largest mining companies of the white metal by market capitalization.
Where Does Lithium Come From?
There are two primary sources to obtain lithium:
- Brine: Lithium brine deposits are accumulations of saline groundwater enriched in dissolved lithium. Although abundant in nature, only select regions in the world contain brines, mostly in South America.
- Mineral/Hard Rock: Lithium found in ‘hard rock’ is a part of minerals hosted in pegmatites, rock units formed when mineral-rich magma intrudes from magma chambers into the Earth’s crust. As the magma cools, water and other minerals become concentrated.
Lithium can also be extracted from lithium clays, but there’s still no commercial scale of production for this method of extraction.
Here’s a look at lithium resources and production by country:
Country | Mine Production (metric tons) | Reserves (metric tons) |
---|---|---|
🇦🇺 Australia | 55,000 | 5,700,000 |
🇨🇱 Chile | 26,000 | 9,200,000 |
🇨🇳 China | 14,000 | 1,500,000 |
🇦🇷 Argentina | 6,200 | 2,200,000 |
🇧🇷 Brazil | 1,500 | 95,000 |
🇿🇼 Zimbabwe | 1,200 | 220,000 |
🇵🇹 Portugal | 900 | 60,000 |
🇺🇸 United States | Withheld | 750,000 |
🌐 Other countries | — | 2,700,000 |
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, four mineral operations in Australia, two brine operations each in Argentina and Chile, and two brine and one mineral operation in China accounted for the majority of global lithium production in 2021.
The Largest Lithium Miners
The world’s largest lithium producer, Albemarle Corporation, operates at the Chilean resource of Salar de Atacama in partnership with the second biggest producer, Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile (SQM). Salar de Atacama is home to almost a quarter of the world’s current supply of lithium and has been in operation since the 1980s.
Albemarle also has assets in Nevada, U.S., and Australia. Its Clayton Valley operation is the only source of lithium production in the United States.
Rank | Company | Market Cap (in billions $) |
---|---|---|
#1 | Albemarle | 33.9 |
#2 | SQM (Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile) | 29.6 |
#3 | Tianqi Lithium | 25.0 |
#4 | Ganfeng Lithium | 22.9 |
#5 | Mineral Resources Ltd. | 9.4 |
#6 | Pilbara Minerals | 8.6 |
#7 | Allkem | 6.5 |
#8 | Livent | 6.2 |
#9 | Sichuan Yahua Industrial | 4.8 |
#10 | Lithium Americas | 4.2 |
While Australia and Chile account for the majority of lithium supply, China has more than half of all capacity for refining it into specialized battery chemicals.
As part of the country’s efforts to dominate the clean energy metals supply chain, three Chinese companies are also among the top lithium mining companies. The biggest, Tianqi Lithium, has a significant stake in Greenbushes, the world’s biggest hard-rock lithium mine in Australia.
Lithium Supply Security
Between 2000 and 2010, lithium consumption in batteries increased by 20% annually. In the following decade, that figure jumped to 107% per year for batteries, with overall lithium consumption growing 27% annually on average.
Demand for lithium is forecast to almost triple by mid-decade from last year’s level, according to BloombergNEF.
Therefore, lithium supply security has become a top priority for tech companies in Asia, Europe, and the United States.
Electrification
How EV Adoption Will Impact Oil Consumption (2015-2025P)
How much oil is saved by adding electric vehicles into the mix? We look at data from 2015 to 2025P for different types of EVs.

The EV Impact on Oil Consumption
As the world moves towards the electrification of the transportation sector, demand for oil will be replaced by demand for electricity.
To highlight the EV impact on oil consumption, the above infographic shows how much oil has been and will be saved every day between 2015 and 2025 by various types of electric vehicles, according to BloombergNEF.
How Much Oil Do Electric Vehicles Save?
A standard combustion engine passenger vehicle in the U.S. uses about 10 barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) per year. A motorcycle uses 1, a Class 8 truck about 244, and a bus uses more than 276 BOEs per year.
When these vehicles become electrified, the oil their combustion engine counterparts would have used is no longer needed, displacing oil demand with electricity.
Since 2015, two and three-wheeled vehicles, such as mopeds, scooters, and motorcycles, have accounted for most of the oil saved from EVs on a global scale. With a wide adoption in Asia specifically, these vehicles displaced the demand for almost 675,000 barrels of oil per day in 2015. By 2021, this number had quickly grown to 1 million barrels per day.
Let’s take a look at the daily displacement of oil demand by EV segment.
Number of barrels saved per day, 2015 | Number of barrels saved per day, 2025P | |
---|---|---|
Electric Passenger Vehicles | 8,600 | 886,700 |
Electric Commercial Vehicles | 0 | 145,000 |
Electric Buses | 43,100 | 333,800 |
Electric Two & Three-Wheelers | 674,300 | 1,100,000 |
Total Oil Barrels Per Day | 726,000 | 2,465,500 |
Today, while work is being done in the commercial vehicle segment, very few large trucks on the road are electric—however, this is expected to change by 2025.
Meanwile, electric passenger vehicles have shown the biggest growth in adoption since 2015.
In 2022, the electric car market experienced exponential growth, with sales exceeding 10 million cars. The market is expected to continue its strong growth throughout 2023 and beyond, eventually coming to save a predicted 886,700 barrels of oil per day in 2025.
From Gas to Electric
While the world shifts from fossil fuels to electricity, BloombergNEF predicts that the decline in oil demand does not necessarily equate to a drop in oil prices.
In the event that investments in new supply capacity decrease more rapidly than demand, oil prices could still remain unstable and high.
The shift toward electrification, however, will likely have other implications.
While most of us associate electric vehicles with lower emissions, it’s good to consider that they are only as sustainable as the electricity used to charge them. The shift toward electrification, then, presents an incredible opportunity to meet the growing demand for electricity with clean energy sources, such as wind, solar and nuclear power.
The shift away from fossil fuels in road transport will also require expanded infrastructure. EV charging stations, expanded transmission capacity, and battery storage will likely all be key to supporting the wide-scale transition from gas to electricity.
Electrification
Graphite: An Essential Material in the Battery Supply Chain
Graphite represents almost 50% of the materials needed for batteries by weight, no matter the chemistry.

Graphite: An Essential Material in the Battery Supply Chain
The demand for lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries has skyrocketed in recent years due to the increasing popularity of electric vehicles (EVs) and renewable energy storage systems.
What many people don’t realize, however, is that the key component of these batteries is not just lithium, but also graphite.
Graphite represents almost 50% of the materials needed for batteries by weight, regardless of the chemistry. In Li-ion batteries specifically, graphite makes up the anode, which is the negative electrode responsible for storing and releasing electrons during the charging and discharging process.
To explore just how essential graphite is in the battery supply chain, this infographic sponsored by Northern Graphite dives into how the anode of a Li-ion battery is made.
What is Graphite?
Graphite is a naturally occurring form of carbon that is used in a wide range of industrial applications, including in synthetic diamonds, EV Li-ion batteries, pencils, lubricants, and semiconductor substrates.
It is stable, high-performing, and reusable. While it comes in many different grades and forms, battery-grade graphite falls into one of two classes: natural or synthetic.
Natural graphite is produced by mining naturally occurring mineral deposits. This method produces only one to two kilograms of CO2 emissions per kilogram of graphite.
Synthetic graphite, on the other hand, is produced by the treatment of petroleum coke and coal tar, producing nearly 5 kg of CO2 per kilogram of graphite along with other harmful emissions such as sulfur oxide and nitrogen oxide.
A Closer Look: How Graphite Turns into a Li-ion Battery Anode
The battery anode production process is composed of four overarching steps. These are:
- Mining
- Shaping
- Purifying
- Coating
Each of these stages results in various forms of graphite with different end-uses.
For instance, the micronized graphite that results from the shaping process can be used in plastic additives. On the other hand, only coated spherical purified graphite that went through all four of the above stages can be used in EV Li-ion batteries.
The Graphite Supply Chain
Despite its growing use in the energy transition all around the world, around 70% of the world’s graphite currently comes from China.
With scarce alternatives to be used in batteries, however, achieving supply security in North America is crucial, and it is using more environmentally friendly approaches to graphite processing.
With a lower environmental footprint and lower production costs, natural graphite serves as the anode material for a greener future.
Click here to learn more about how Northern Graphite plans to build the largest Battery Anode Material (BAM) plant in North America.
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