[청년투데이=김시온 기자] With the recent surge in Chinese lithium carbonate spot prices, the value of the Argentine’Ombre Muerto’ lithium salt lake acquired by POSCO in 2018 is expected to surge.
The spot price of lithium carbonate was $5,000 per ton as of July of last year, but this year, the price of spot lithium carbonate rose more than double, reaching $11,000 per ton in February of this year.
In particular, POSCO revealed that through the verification of the reserves of Montgomery at the end of last year, it has confirmed that the lithium reserves in Salt Lake are 13.5 million tons, 6 times higher than the estimated 2.2 million tons at the time of acquisition.
With the growth of the global electric vehicle market, including China, the price of lithium, an essential material for electric vehicle batteries, is expected to continue to rise, while there are also observations that the price will increase further in the future.
Meanwhile, in addition to lithium, POSCO is also actively promoting investment in nickel, a key raw material for cathode materials that make up secondary batteries. Nickel, along with lithium, is a material that is directly connected to the performance of batteries, and POSCO plans to secure its own supply of nickel for batteries through recycling business using waste batteries and investment in nickel mines such as Australia.
POSCO, which is showing such a movement, will create its own supply system of lithium, nickel, graphite, etc., which are raw materials for secondary battery materials by 2030, and POSCO Chemical will produce 400,000 tons of cathode materials and 260,000 tons of anode materials as raw materials. It said that it plans to build.
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