Producer
Tianqi Lithium
Tianqi Lithium Corporation (SHEX: 002466, HKEX: 9696; HQ Chengdu, Sichuan, China; ~$4B revenue) is one of China's two largest lithium producers and the builder of the first major lithium hydroxide refinery outside China. Tianqi owns 51% of Talison Lithium (Greenbushes Mine, WA; the world's largest hard-rock lithium mine) alongside Albemarle (49%). Tianqi's Kwinana Lithium Hydroxide Plant (Western Australia; 48,000 t/year design capacity) was the first large-scale LiOH conversion facility built outside China, completed ~2021 — but faced severe operational challenges including quality issues, staffing shortfalls, and equipment problems that kept utilization rates low for multiple years. Tianqi also operates LiOH conversion facilities in Sichuan and Jiangsu, China. Tianqi additionally holds 22.16% of SQM. The combination of Greenbushes mine control and Kwinana LiOH processing was intended to create a non-Chinese LiOH supply chain, but persistent Kwinana underperformance undermined this goal. Source: Tianqi Lithium Annual Report 2023; Reuters.
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Inputs supplied
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Goods downstream
2
Facilities
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Stories
What they make
3 inputs Tianqi Lithium supplies
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Where they make it
2 facilities
Talison Lithium Greenbushes Mine (Western Australia) →
AUSouthwest Western Australia · mining
World's largest hard-rock lithium mine (Talison Lithium Pty Ltd; 51% Tianqi, 49% Albemarle); Greenbushes, Western Australia. Produces spodumene concentrate (technical grade at ~6% Li2O; chemical grade at ~5.4% Li2O). FY2024 production: 1.38 million metric tons of spodumene concentrate. Greenbushes ore body is one of the richest known lithium pegmatites in the world — high-grade ore at ~2.5-3.5% Li2O in situ. Concentrate is shipped via Bunbury Port to China (primarily) and South Korea for conversion. A separate Chemical Grade Plant (CGP3) expansion is underway. The mine has operated since the 1980s; lithium mining commenced 1983. Source: Albemarle Annual Report 2023; Tianqi Lithium disclosures.
Tianqi Lithium Kwinana LiOH Plant →
AUWestern Australia · manufacturing
Tianqi Lithium Kwinana LiOH plant; 100% Tianqi-owned; Kwinana Industrial Area (~40km south of Perth, WA); first large-scale lithium hydroxide refinery built outside China (~2019-2021; AUD $700M+ construction cost). Design capacity: 48,000 t/year LiOH·H2O in two trains. The plant was heralded as a strategic milestone when built — demonstrating Australia could convert its own spodumene domestically rather than exporting to China. However, Tianqi Kwinana experienced significant operational difficulties: quality issues, staffing shortages, equipment commissioning problems, and COVID-related delays kept utilization rates well below nameplate for 2021-2023. Tianqi reported the plant operating at approximately 40-50% of design capacity through 2023. Spodumene feedstock from Greenbushes Mine. Source: Tianqi Lithium Annual Report 2023; Reuters; Australian Financial Review.
What else they do
Business segments
The company's full revenue map — where this supply-chain role fits within their broader business.
Greenbushes Mine (51%) + Global Resource Equity
35%Lithium Chemicals (LiOH, Li2CO3)
55%Battery Materials (Emerging)
10%
Intelligence
What's known
Sourced claims about this company's role in supply chains — chokepoints, concentration, incidents, dual-use connections.
Origin2023
Tianqi Lithium holds a unique dual resource concentration: ~51% of Talison Lithium (Greenbushes Mine, Western Australia — world's largest hard-rock lithium mine) and ~22.16% of SQM (Chile — world's largest brine lithium producer). No other company holds equity stakes in both the world's largest hard-rock lithium resource and the world's largest brine lithium resource simultaneously. The combined equity represents meaningful influence over a material fraction of global lithium supply. Tianqi's SQM stake acquisition in 2018 — spending USD 4.07 billion for a 23.77% SQM stake — was leveraged financing that nearly forced Tianqi into default when lithium prices collapsed in 2019-2020. The Chinese government's support for Tianqi's refinancing (via Chinese bank debt rollover and strategic investor backing) arguably reflected Beijing's view that Chinese control of global lithium resource equity was strategically valuable enough to rescue a financially distressed company. Tianqi survived and its SQM stake has since increased substantially in value as EV demand drove lithium prices to record highs in 2022.
Tianqi Lithium Corporation ↗Capacity2022
Tianqi's Kwinana Lithium Hydroxide Plant in Western Australia was intended to demonstrate that battery-grade LiOH could be produced outside China — reducing Western EV supply chain dependence on Chinese processing. The Kwinana plant (designed capacity: 48,000 MT/year LiOH) was completed in 2021 after significant delays and capital cost overruns. But persistent operational problems — quality consistency issues (product not meeting battery-grade specifications), difficulty recruiting and retaining qualified process chemists in regional Western Australia, and equipment reliability challenges — kept Kwinana operating at a fraction of capacity for multiple years. The Kwinana experience demonstrated a critical asymmetry: Chinese LiOH plants work efficiently because of accumulated process knowledge, experienced operators, and supply chain infrastructure developed over decades of Chinese chemical manufacturing. Simply building the capital infrastructure in a Western-aligned country does not automatically replicate the operational capability. The 'process knowledge' required for battery-grade LiOH conversion is geographically concentrated in Chinese engineers and chemical workers — a human capital barrier to non-Chinese processing that is harder to address than capital availability.
Reuters ↗Concentration2022
Tianqi Lithium (Chengdu, China) holds 51% of Greenbushes Mine (Western Australia) — the world's largest hard-rock lithium mine — AND 22.16% of SQM, the world's largest brine lithium producer. This dual position means a single Chinese company has material stakes in both the world's largest hard-rock lithium deposit and the world's largest brine lithium operation simultaneously, while being neither operator of SQM nor the majority economic beneficiary of Greenbushes' full output (which Tianqi shares with Albemarle). Tianqi acquired its SQM stake in 2018 for $4.07B, borrowing heavily and nearly defaulting in 2019-2020 during the previous lithium price downturn. The combination of Greenbushes control and SQM strategic stake gives a Chinese state-linked company significant visibility and influence over a majority of global lithium supply before the material ever reaches a battery factory. Source: Tianqi Lithium Annual Report 2023; Bloomberg; Reuters.
Reuters ↗