July 25, 2010

It seems being prudent is the intention over in China, where Liu Shanqing stated that "the original plan was to have a capacity of 60,000 tonnes by 2015, but since extraction technologies are not that mature we have scaled it down to 30,000 tonnes," Liu is Qinghai province's director of Land and Resources Department.

According to the Chinese newspaper People's Daily online, Citic National Security Lithium Technology Corporation will produce 25,000 tonnes of that. The global production of lithium in 2008 was also 25,000 tonnes.

With a name like Citic National Security Lithium Technology Corporation, it's clear that supply chain security is a national  priority in China.

Qinghai is high altitude arid province northeast of Tibet, and geographically is a part of the Tibetan plateau. It is the source of the Yangze, Yellow and Mekong rivers.

Prices of lithium carbonate are likely to increase by 16 percent year-on-year globally by 2013, due to the increased demand for lithium batteries, said a recent from China International Capital Corporation.

The original article is here:

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90778/90860/7078143.html