Talison Lithium has reported that the Honourable Terry Redman MLA, West Australian Minster for Agriculture and Food, Forestry, Housing and Member for Blackwood-Stirling has officially opened the expanded Greenbushes Lithium Operations plant situated in Western Australia.
More than 150 local and international dignitaries and guests, which include local community members, shareholders and customers, participated in the event and visited the mine and processing plants. Chairman, Peter Robinson, and General Manager Greenbushes, Pat Scallon addressed the guests.
Robinson stated that Talison believes that lithium will play a key role in the new energy future of the world, not only in mobile electronics like iPads, but also in solar storage, grid stabilization batteries, and electric vehicles. The plant expansion illustrates the company’s commitment toward this belief and gives assurance to these new industries through the availability of lithium to promote the new energy future.
The plant expansion was concluded and commissioned in June 2012, increasing Talison's production capacity by two folds to roughly 100,000 tons lithium carbonate equivalent per year, representing approximately two-thirds of current demand worldwide. The expansion by design was large scale to deliver operational efficiencies and provide Talison the capability to meet the requirements of the future lithium market.
Talison intends to gradually increase the capacity utilization of its expanded chemical-grade concentrate processing facility as per the growth of the lithium market. Moreover, with this expansion, Talison will now have the capacity to respond quickly to varying conditions in the lithium market.
Moreover, superior quality feedstock will be provided by this new expansion to the company’s facility to manufacture lithium carbonate for customers in nations such as Europe, Korea and Japan. This is the company’s next exciting phase of growth, concluded Robinson.