“Russia has a lithium resource base, which is 10% of the world’s reserves and explored back in the 60s of the previous century. This is almost 4 million tons in 15 explored deposits. The first two objects in the Murmansk region will gain licensing and active subsoil use by the end of the current year. I think production might start there already in the next three or four years. Moreover, these are world-class deposits, both in terms of the lithium reserves and content,” O. Kazanov said.
According to him, now the demand for lithium is boosting in the world. Its driver is the battery industry. “Already in the next 10 years, we will see an increase from the current 100,000 tons of lithium consumption to about 700,000 tons. In total, 88 deposits of ore lithium will be launched in the world in the near future, but it is not enough to cover its entire global demand,” the expert notes.
Meanwhile, in Russia, a peculiar situation has developed in the lithium industry. The country has huge reserves of ore lithium reaching 10% of the world’s. Besides, Russia discovered lithium reserves in solutions in the bottom waters of the oil and gas fields in the Angara-Lena region but they have not been fully assessed yet. The lithium content in solutions is very high by the world standards, i.e. about 300 mg/l.
There are two large lithium processing plants in Russia, in particular, the Krasnoyarsk chemical-metallurgical plant, which buy raw lithium from Chile, bring it up to battery quality and ship to Southeast Asia.
Against the background of this situation, Federal Subsoil Resources Management Agency has recognised development of the lithium ore and brine reserves as a priority area.
Lithium ore mining technologies already exist; they scale fairly well, especially taking into account increase of the demand for lithium and its price rise. “I think already on ore lithium, in the prospect of the next eight years, we are going to be among the top five producers of this metal along with Chile, Argentina, China and Australia,” O. Kazanov noted.
The next stage in the Russia’s lithium industry development after the ore deposits have been commissioned will be application of the technologies for lithium production from solutions. In the world, this is the DLE technology mainly used for solutions at geothermal power plants. In Russia, lithium solutions are found in the bottom waters of oil and gas fields. This water is somehow extracted from the subsoil and injected back into the reservoir to maintain pressure in an oil and gas well.
The engineering centre created on the basis of the Krasnoyarsk chemical-metallurgical plant and VIMS developed its own technologies for lithium extraction just during a year, and now they are tested under the laboratory conditions.
