Lithium demand may triple in the next decade as consumers buy more portable electronics and battery-powered vehicles, said James D. Calaway, chairman of lithium miner Orocobre Ltd.
Global lithium demand of about 110,000 metric tons may double by 2020 solely from existing applications such as mobile phones and glass making, Calaway said yesterday in an interview at Bloomberg headquarters in New York. Sales to electric-vehicle battery makers will add 10,000 tons by 2015 before increasing more rapidly, he said.
“You could very easily see by 2020 the need to triple production or even more just to accommodate the auto sector,” Calaway said.
Orocobre will begin producing lithium in 2012 at its first project, Salar de Olaroz, atop salt flats in Argentina’s Jujuy province, he said. The company should become profitable the next year when output reaches 15,000 tons of lithium and 36,000 tons of potash fertilizer, he said. The Brisbane, Australia-based company may start pumping lithium-rich water from a second mine in Argentina in 2014, said Calaway, 53. (more)
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