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Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile is a Chilean commodities producer with significant operations in lithium (primarily used in batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage systems), specialty and standard potassium fertilizers, iodine (primarily used in X-ray contrast media), and solar salts. The company extracts these materials through its high-quality salt brine deposits and caliche ore. SQM is developing a hard rock lithium project in Australia and expanding its lithium refining assets in China.

Albemarle is one of the world's largest lithium producers. In the lithium industry, the majority of demand comes from batteries, where lithium is used as the energy storage material, particularly in electric vehicles. Albemarle is a fully integrated lithium producer. Its upstream resources include salt brine deposits in Chile and the US and two hard rock mines in Australia, both of which are joint ventures. The company operates lithium refining plants in Chile, the US, Australia, and China. Albemarle is a global leader in the production of bromine, used in flame retardants. It is also a major producer of oil refining catalysts.

Lithium Americas is a pure-play lithium producer. The firm owns one resource, Thacker Pass, that is located in northwest Nevada. Thacker Pass recently began construction and is expected to begin production in the mid- to late 2020s. Thacker Pass is one of the largest known lithium resources in the world. The project would be the first clay-based asset to enter production, and we estimate it will be in bottom half of the global cost curve. Management plans to develop Thacker Pass into a fully integrated lithium production site, with downstream refining capabilities on site, and will sell into the lithium chemical market.

Arcadium Lithium is a pure-play lithium producer that was formed in the Allkem-Livent merger in January 2024. Arcadium should benefit from increased lithium demand via higher electric vehicle adoption, as lithium is a key component of EV batteries. The company's low-cost lithium carbonate production comes from two brine resources in Argentina. Arcadium also produces spodumene, a hard rock lithium upstream concentrate, from a mine in Australia and operates downstream lithium hydroxide conversion plants in the United States and China.