Arcadium Lithium Stock

Arcadium Lithium plc engages in the production of lithium chemicals products in the Asia Pacific, North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America.

The company’s primary products, namely battery-grade lithium hydroxide, lithium carbonate, butyllithium and high purity lithium metal are critical inputs used in various performance applications. The company’s portfolio includes lithium brine operations and development projects in Argentina, a hard rock lithium operation in Australia, a hard rock development project in Quebec, and a lithium hydroxide conversion facility in Japan.

The company produces lithium compounds for use in applications that have specific and constantly changing performance requirements, including battery-grade lithium hydroxide for use in high performance lithium-ion batteries. The company supplies butyllithium, which is used in the production of polymers and pharmaceutical products, as well as a range of specialty lithium compounds including high purity lithium metal, which is used in non-rechargeable batteries and in the production of lightweight materials for aerospace applications.

The company operates as one reportable segment based on the commonalities among its products and services, the types of customers it serves and the manner in which it reviews and evaluates operating performance. The company is a leading global lithium chemicals producer with a lithium deposit base that is among the largest in the world.

The company has developed proprietary process knowledge that enables it to produce high quality, low impurity lithium carbonate and lithium chloride, and helps it to produce industry leading quality downstream products. The company is one of a few lithium compound producers with global manufacturing capabilities. The battery-grade lithium hydroxide in the U.S. and China that the company produces today uses lithium carbonate as feedstock. The company uses lithium chloride to produce lithium metal, a key feedstock in the production of butyllithium products in the U.S., the United Kingdom and China, as well as in the production of high purity lithium metal in the U.S.

Strategy

The key elements of the company’s strategy are to expand its production capacities; diversify its sources of supply; expand its applications and process technology capabilities; and develop next generation lithium compounds.

Products and Markets

The company’s performance lithium compounds are frequently produced to meet specific customer application and performance requirements. The company has developed its capabilities in producing performance lithium compounds through decades of interaction with its customers, and its products are key inputs into their production processes. The company’s customer relationships provide it with first-hand insight into its customers’ production objectives and future needs in terms of product volume, mix and specifications, which it in turn uses to further develop its products.

Other specialties include lithium phosphate, pharmaceutical-grade lithium carbonate, high purity lithium chloride and specialty organics. The lithium carbonate and lithium chloride that the company produces today is largely consumed as feedstock in the process of producing downstream performance lithium compounds. The spodumene that Allkem produces is largely sold to customers for use as feedstock in the process of producing downstream performance lithium compounds.

As of December 31, 2023, the company had two mining properties. The company’s sole production stage property, Project Fenix, is located in Salar del Hombre Muerto, in Catamarca Province, Argentina. The company refers to this region as Salar del Hombre Muerto or SdHM and to this mining property in the region as the SdHM property. The company also owns an 50% economic interest in a development stage property in the James Bay area, near the community of Nemaska, in the Province of Quebec, Canada. The company refers to this property as the Whabouchi Mine, which it expects will provide spodumene concentrate to a lithium hydroxide conversion facility under construction in Becancour, Quebec. Together, the Whabouchi Mine and the Becancour lithium hydroxide conversion facility are part of the Nemaska Integrated Lithium Project.

As of December 31, 2023, the company had five mining properties. The company’s sole production stage property is located in Mt Cattlin, Western Australia. The company refers to this mining property as Mt Cattlin. The Salar de Olaroz property located in Jujuy Province, Argentina has started extraction without determining mineral reserves. The company refers to this mining property as Olaroz. Olaroz is owned by Allkem through a joint venture with ownership of 66.5% by Allkem, 25% by Toyota Tsusho Corporation (TTC) and 8.5% by Jujuy Energia y Mineria Sociedad del Estado (JEMSE) (a Jujuy provincial mining body).

The company owns three development stage mining properties located in James Bay, Quebec, Canada, Salar de Cauchari in Jujuy Province, Argentina, and Sal de Vida in Catamarca Province, Argentina. All three are development stage properties, and the company refers to them as James Bay, Cauchari, and Sal de Vida, respectively.

The SdHM property is primarily located in the Western Subbasin of the Salar del Hombre Muerto, a salt pan (salar) located in northwest Argentina, in the northeastern portion of Catamarca province on the border with Salta Province, as indicated in the map below.

The company conducts its operations in SdHM through Minera del Altiplano S.A. (MdA), an Argentine operating subsidiary. We extract lithium from naturally occurring lithium-rich brines in SdHM, which covers a total area of nearly 600 square kilometers in a region of the Andes Mountains of northwest Argentina known as the lithium triangle. This area of the Central Andes is within an arid plateau with numerous volcanic peaks and salt flats known as salars and is the principal lithium-bearing region of South America.

Salar del Hombre Muerto consists of evaporite deposits formed within an isolated basin depression. Fault-bounded bedrock hills occur within and along the margins of the salar basin, subdividing the Salar del Hombre Muerto into two separate sub-basins (eastern and western), each with different evaporite sediment compositions. The eastern subbasin is dominated by borate evaporites, whereas the western subbasin is relatively free of clastic sediment (such as sand, silts and clays) and is dominated by halite (sodium chloride) evaporite deposits.

In connection with the mining concession, MdA owns and operates selective adsorption lithium production facilities and related chemical processing plants (the SA Plant) in the Western Subbasin of the SdHM property (S25° 27', W 67° 05').

The company owns its interest in the property and conduct its operations at the SdHM property through MdA, in which it owns a substantially 100% equity interest, with the government of Catamarca province holding an immaterial equity interest through a special class of shares providing for certain dividend and governance rights.

MdA holds title to mineral concession rights for its extraction activities on the SdHM property. These mineral concession rights cover an area of approximately 327 square kilometers and were granted to MdA pursuant to the Argentine Mining Code.

The mineral concession rights granted to MdA include a total of 144 mining concessions, with 143 being in the Western Subbasin and 1 being in the Eastern Subbasin. On December 29, 2021, the mining authority of Catamarca approved the formation of the Salar del Hombre Muerto mining group (i.e., a single mining property constituted from multiple adjoining existing mines), combining 141 of the 144 mining properties into one mining property.

The Whabouchi Mine is located in the James Bay area in the Province of Quebec, UTM Zone 18N 441000 m E; 5725750 m N, approximately 30 kilometers east of the Cree Nation of Nemaska and 300 kilometers north-northwest of the town of Chibougamau, as indicated in the map below.

The Whabouchi Mine is owned by Nemaska Lithium Inc. (NLI), in which the company owns a 50% economic interest (through the company’s 100% equity ownership of Quebec Lithium Partners (UK) Limited, which in turn owns 50% of the equity interest in NLI). The remaining 50% economic interest in NLI is owned indirectly by the government of the Province of Quebec, Canada, through Investissement Quebec (IQ).

The Whabouchi Mine covers a total of approximately 1,632 hectares, comprised of one block containing 35 map-designated claims and one mining lease covering 138 hectares from the Ministère des Ressources naturelles et des Forêts of the Province of Quebec. The Whabouchi Mine is located in the northeast part of the Superior Province of the Canadian Shield craton, in the Lac des Montagnes volcano-sedimentary formation, which comprises metasediments and amphibolites (mafic and ultramafic metavolcanics).

The Whabouchi Mine is characterized by a relatively flat topography, with the exception of a local pegmatite ridge. The Whabouchi Mine comprises planned mining operations, as well as the crushing and concentrating of the ore to produce spodumene concentrate. The Whabouchi Mine’s 35 map-designated claims have expiry dates ranging from November 2, 2024 to January 24, 2025, but are renewable by NLI subject to declaring proof of exploration and paying renewal rights.

The General Purpose Lease covers 63.47 hectares (ha). The leases are wholly owned by the company, and it also holds the underlying freehold title of the land subject to the current mining operations. We also maintain a number of exploration and prospecting licenses contiguous with M74/244.

Olaroz is in production and is operated by a lithium chemicals production joint venture. Olaroz is managed through the operating company SDJ, which is owned 66.5% by the company, 25% by TTC and 8.5% by JEMSE. As a part of the joint venture, TTC is the exclusive sales agent for products from Olaroz, with the company (through Allkem) and TTC exercising shared decision making over marketing, product allocation and sales terms.

The joint venture holds mineral properties that cover the majority of the Salar de Olaroz, including tenements covering 47,615 ha and two exploration properties (cateos) and consisting of 33 mining concessions.

Olaroz is located in Salar de Olaroz, which is in the high-altitude Puna ecoregion of the Altiplano of northwest Argentina, where extensive lithium brine resources are present. Sal de Vida is wholly owned by us. Sal de Vida is located approximately 200 kilometers south of Olaroz in the high-altitude Puna ecoregion of the Altiplano of northwest Argentina at approximately 4,000 meters above sea level. Sal de Vida is within Salar del Hombre Muerto in the Province of Catamarca. Sal de Vida tenements are held by the company and comprise 31 mining concessions over an area of 26,253 ha. Sal de Vida is located in the Puna ecoregion of the Argentina Altiplano where the climate is extremely cold and dry.

Cauchari is located in Salar de Cauchari, which is in the high-altitude Puna ecoregion of the Altiplano of northwest Argentina, where extensive lithium brine resources are present.

James Bay is wholly owned by the company through two Canadian wholly owned subsidiaries. James Bay is located in northwestern Quebec, 382 kilometers north of the community of Matagami. James Bay is approximately 130 kilometers east of James Bay and the Cree Nation of Eastmain community.

In February 2011, Galaxy signed a joint venture agreement with Lithium One for the exploration and eventual development of James Bay.

James Bay comprises two contiguous packages of mining titles, covering an area of approximately 11,130 ha. Ridgeline Royalties Inc. owns a 0.5% NSR royalty covering 11 claims (totaling an area of approximately 93 ha) forming part of James Bay pursuant to an agreement dated May 14, 2009.

LRC owns a 1.5% NSR royalty covering 23 claims (totaling an area of approximately 1,195 ha) forming part of James Bay pursuant to an agreement dated June 9, 2009. James Bay is subject to the JBNQA, which governs a range of matters between the Government of Quebec and the Cree Nations of Quebec. James Bay is also subject to a federal and provincial environmental assessment. The Provincial assessment must be consistent with the JBNQA. In January 2023, the federal Minister for the Environment and Climate Change issued federal authorization for James Bay. In December 2023, Allkem received the provincial authorization by the Government of Quebec following completion of the environmental and social impact assessment and review process by the COMEX. The company I in the process of requesting the near term construction permits that are required prior to commencing construction at James Bay.

Seasonality

The company’s operations in Argentina are seasonally impacted by weather, including varying evaporation rates and amounts of rainfall during different seasons. The company’s operations team continuously measures pond concentrations and models how they will change based on operating decisions. The company’s processes use proprietary and traditional technologies to minimize the variation of concentrations at the inlet to its plants.

Competition

The company’s primary competitors for performance lithium compounds are Albemarle Corporation and Ganfeng Lithium.

Argentine Law and Regulation

The company is subject to various regulatory requirements in Argentina under the Argentine Mining Code, the Argentine Mining Investment Law and certain federal and provincial regulations, including with respect to environmental compliance. In addition, the respective relationships between it, MdA and the Catamarca provincial government, and between Sales de Jujuy S.A. (SDJ) and the Jujuy Energia y Mineria Sociedad del Estado (JEMSE), are regulated through contractual frameworks. Under the agreement between SDJ and JEMSE, SDJ may, in certain circumstances, be required to sell at market prices up to 5% of its production to the Jujuy provincial government.

Canadian Law and Regulation

The company’s Canadian operations are subject to Canadian federal and provincial laws and regulations. Both levels of the Canadian government regulate environmental assessments and release of contaminants to the receiving environment. In addition to federal and provincial laws, Allkem's James Bay project is also subject to the specific framework established pursuant to the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement (the JBNQA).

Environmental Laws and Regulations

The company’s business and its customers are subject to significant requirements under the European Community Regulation for the Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH).

History

Arcadium Lithium plc was founded in 1944.