Sumitomo Metal Mine plans to produce lithium in South America

Sumitomo Metal Mining announced that it will start producing lithium and its compounds, which are used in electric car batteries, in South America as early as 2028. Sumitomo Metal Mines is considering producing lithium in marginal salt lakes in countries such as Argentina and Chile. In addition to forming joint ventures with large foreign resource development companies in Japan and securing equity through joint investment, the company plans to acquire equity in lithium production by providing adsorbent technology. By 2028, the company plans to produce 20,000 to 30,000 tons of lithium, enough to power the batteries of hundreds of thousands of electric cars.

According to the introduction, Sumitomo Metal Mine is a major manufacturer of lithium battery core components "cathode material." The cathode material is made of rare metals such as lithium, nickel and cobalt. Previously, Sumitomo Metal Mines engaged in overseas production of nickel and cobalt, but lithium basically relies on foreign enterprises to produce, raw materials heavily dependent on imports. However, Sumitomo Metal Mine says it has developed an exclusive sorbent technology needed to extract lithium from salty water. The new technology can greatly reduce the time required to extract lithium from about a year to about a week, and reduce the cost of the reagent required for the extraction process to about one-tenth of the original. In this way, the company can participate in some of the currently unprofitable and difficult to develop projects in South America, and ensure profitability.