Lithium Faces Challenge of Converting Resources into New Supply

The global lithium market has a sufficient resource base to sustain demand growth, but faces difficulties converting that geological potential into new supply. In 2025, global reserves reached 196.9 million tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE), compared to annual consumption of 1.5 million tonnes.

Added to reserves were another 798.3 million tonnes of LCE corresponding to identified resources not yet extracted. The evolution over the past decade has also widened that margin: between 2016 and 2024, 6.7 million tonnes of LCE were produced, while reserves increased by 122 million tonnes. At the observed consumption pace, the reserve horizon has remained above 125 years since 2016.

The main challenge thus lies in accelerating the development of known resources into production. Demand could exceed 3.5 million tonnes of LCE within ten years, driven by growth in stationary energy storage systems, commercial electric vehicles, and electric mobility.

Exploration, meanwhile, recorded a pullback following the high price cycle of 2021 and 2022. Global investment in lithium exploration fell more than 66% year-on-year in 2025, in a context marked by supply surplus, a slowdown in electric vehicle sales, and greater difficulties accessing credit. Despite the decline, spending remained above the historical average following the 2022 price boom.

Technology emerges as a central factor for expanding supply, both through new extraction methods and improvements in processing. In the geographic distribution of the supply chain, Australia led mining production in 2025 with 535,000 tonnes of LCE, equivalent to 32% of global total, while Argentina ranked fifth with 138,000 tonnes, 8.2% of global production.

With information from Panorama Minero.