With both the demand and cost of lithium rising dramatically over the last few months, and forecast to do so into the future, this infographic takes a look at the countries which mines the most of the metal, and where the largest reserves are held.
The shift towards electric-powered mobility has really picked up pace in recent years and is only set to intensify as bans around the world on petrol and diesel car production come into place. As data from the U.S. Geological Survey shows, Australia and Chile are the countries best positioned to capitalize on the lithium rush. In 2021, 55,000 metric tons of the metal crucial to EV battery production was mined 'down under' - more than double of that extracted in Chile. The South American country does however have considerably larger reserves of the natural resource, as this infographic shows.
Important to note is that production figures for the United States were not published by the source in order to "avoid disclosing company proprietary data". Reserves in the country are however recorded at 750,000 metric tons in 2021.
