China produces the most lithium products in the world. At the same time, it always depended on the import of this raw material, since until recently it was believed that the Celestial Empire had only about 6% of the world’s lithium reserves. The recent discovery of new deposits suggests that China has at least 16.5% of the world’s reserves of this metal, which makes the country second in the world in terms of explored volumes of lithium.
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The country now accounts for 16.5% of the world’s lithium reserves, second only to Chile and now ahead of Australia, Argentina and Bolivia, according to the Geological Survey of China, as reported by local sources. This happened, among other things, after the discovery of large deposits of lithium in Tibet and in a number of other places. Thus, China’s proven reserves of this metal have almost tripled, making it (in the future) less dependent on the import of this raw material.
«For a long time, the country was heavily dependent on foreign lithium resources with large volumes of imports. This has led to increased production costs and limited the development of related industries,” Xinhua reported.
It should be noted that the development and processing of lithium, like other rare earth elements, is very harmful to the environment. However, the need for this chemical element today is so high that even developed countries, such as the USA or Canada, are ready to do anything to get free or easy access to it.