Operations

HOW OUR OPERATIONS WORK

TLEA is proud to pioneer downstream processing of lithium hydroxide in Western Australia, one of the world’s richest resource regions, and we’re building a thriving local industry.

Western Australia’s first battery-grade lithium hydroxide was produced in May 2022 at our processing plant in the Kwinana Industrial Area, south of Perth, for global customers producing rechargeable batteries for the electric vehicle and energy storage industries. Read more about what we do, and how we do it.

Kwinana

Located in Kwinana, our world-leading lithium hydroxide refinery produces battery-grade lithium for a global market. With a planned annual production capacity of up to 48,000 tonnes, from two production trains, we’ve created a top-tier production plant that’s driving Australia’s lithium industry. TLEA has one train in production and a second partially built.

Greenbushes

First established in 1983, the Talison Lithium Mine in Greenbushes, Western Australia is the world’s highest-grade and largest hard rock deposit of the lithium mineral, spodumene. A joint venture between TLEA and Albermarle Corporation, it’s currently under expansion plans to increase annual production from the current 1.62 million tonnes per year, to 2.66 million tonnes per year.

Vertical Integration

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1. Mine and concentrator

Spodumene is mined and concentrated at the Talison Lithium mine, in Greenbushes, then transported 250km to our Kwinana refinery.

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2. Refinery

We employ leading circular economy best practices at our Kwinana refinery. This means that we don’t just produce lithium – we use the whole of the material to produce four different products from the one source.

As well as lithium hydroxide, we produce three non-lithium products: Tianqi Aluminosilicate (TAS), Gyplime and Sodium Sulphate for use in Australia and overseas.