By Kim Hyun-cheol
Staff Reporter
POSCO, the nation's largest steelmaker, plans to team up with government offices to develop technology to collect lithium by abstracting the mineral from sea water.
The company signed an agreement on the joint project Tuesday with the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs and the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (KIGAM).
Until 2014, POSCO and the ministry will invest 15 billion won ($12.9 million) in the development to be carried by KIGAM and the Pohang Research Institute of Industrial Science & Technology. The two institutes aim to establish a commercialized plant to produce lithium carbonate through the project.
They started a project to develop technology to abstract marine dissolved resources in 2000, and came up with the lithium-collecting method last year.
Once completed, POSCO expects the new plant will greatly contribute to the nation's resource industry.
"POSCO hopes this lithium project will help promote Korea's resource development history to a higher level, just as it did through the steel business, in which it created all its achievements out of virtually nothing," CEO Chung Joon-yang said at the signing ceremony.
POSCO expects to produce 20,000 to 100,000 metric tons of lithium carbonate in the facility. Korea's annual demand for the mineral is tallied at some 5,000 tons but the country depends on imports for the whole amount.
As the industrial demand is forecast to grow to 20,000 tons per year, the project will be able to replace projected imports of up to $200 million, as well as create an economic effort of $800 million in lithium exports, the company said.
As an ingredient for secondary cells used in electric vehicles, cell phones and laptops, as well as forecasted to be an ingredient for the nuclear fusion energy generation, lithium is regarded as one of the most significant resources for the future.
Production of the mineral is currently focused in only several countries, including China and Chile.
Lithium is one of the resources gaining the biggest interest from countries.
Competition is becoming fierce in the industry, as the commercial reserves of the mineral across the country are evaluated to be as low as other participants.