The discovery of substantial new reserves have made China the second-largest holder of lithium resources worldwide after Chile, multiple media outlets have reported.
According to the Ministry of Natural Resources, China’s indicated reserves now account for 16.5 percent of all known global deposits, up from the previous 6 percent. The breakthroughs stem from discoveries of fresh deposits in the country’s west, along the 2,800-kilometre West Kunlun-Songpan-Ganzi lithium belt.
The belt alone reportedly has cumulative proven reserves of more than 6.5 million tons, with resource potential exceeding 30 million tons.
[See more: China ramps up efforts in resource security]
Meanwhile, new techniques have been developed that allow the metal – which is widely used in electric vehicle batteries – to be extracted from salt lakes and lithium mica. Recently identified salt lake lithium resources amount to more than 14 million tons.
Lin Boqiang, director of the China Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, told the Global Times that China’s competitiveness in the lithium battery industry was bolstered by its end-to-end industrial chains. These enable high-quality batteries to be produced at lower costs.
A significant portion of global battery production and capacity is concentrated in China, accelerating the development of related technologies in the country, Lin said.
