Lithium carbonate

Primary uses. lithium-ion battery chemistry; lubricating greases; glass and ceramics.

The chain — from the ground to the buyer

A critical material passes through distinct stages, and the country that leads each stage is often different — that gap is what this atlas exists to show. Each layer comes from a different public source with its own vintage, labelled below; shares are % of the world total.

● Reserves — where it could come from

Reserves are the deposits known to exist and economically worth mining — the long-run ceiling on supply, distinct from what is actually produced today. Lithium carbonate's reserves are broadly diversified: 🇨🇱 Chile holds the most (33%), ahead of 🇦🇺 Australia (22%) and 🇦🇷 Argentina (13%). At today's extraction rate the known reserves would last roughly 156 years, so scarcity is not the binding constraint — access, capital and processing capacity are. Tellingly, the country sitting on the most ore (🇨🇱 Chile) is not the one extracting it (🇦🇺 Australia) — geology sets the ceiling, but capacity and policy decide who actually supplies the market. USGS 2024 · reserves as of 2023

● Mined — where it is dug up today

Mining is where ore leaves the ground — the stage most people equate with “the source”, though it is rarely where the supply risk actually concentrates. Output is moderately concentrated: 🇦🇺 Australia supplies 48%, with 🇨🇱 Chile (24%) next. It out-produces reserve-richer 🇨🇱 Chile while holding just 22% of reserves itself — supply power at this stage is built on installed capacity, not geology. BGS World Mineral Statistics · mine production, 2000–2024 (USGS-validated)

● Refined / processed — where it becomes usable metal

Refining / processing converts ore into the metal or compound buyers actually purchase; it concentrates in fewer hands than mining and sits at the buyer's doorstep, which is why it is usually the true chokepoint. 🇨🇳 China processes 74% — highly concentrated. So although 🇦🇺 Australia mines the most, China controls processing: the dependency the mine map hides, and the reason import-origin statistics misread the real source. On the buffers: 0% of supply is recovered from end-of-life recycling and substitutes are scarce, while the US imports >25% of what it consumes. IEA 2026

● Recycling & substitutability — the mitigants (EU CRM)

0% of supply comes from recycling end-of-life products — there is essentially no end-of-life recycling, so a disruption has no secondary cushion. Substitutability is high — few or no alternatives, so a disruption bites hard.

● Traded — who ships it

Actual bilateral trade of the traded form, reconciled from UN Comtrade / CEPII BACI. Pick a year below — 2018–2024 measured, 2025* nowcast, 2026** directional scenario. The full 2002–2026 range is on the interactive atlas.

Context

The battery metal - a concentrated dependency, but NOT on China: Chile supplies ~75% (the South American 'lithium triangle'), with the US and Argentina behind. The naive view blames the Netherlands and Germany (clearing hubs); the origin is South America.

Every figure on this page is computed from out/data.json and out/flows_2024.json by build_profiles.py — no hand-entered numbers.