--- title: "Rio Tinto Bets on Lithium as Its Fastest-Growing Business" description: "Rio Tinto, the world's second-largest mining company, said lithium is now its fastest-growing division and aims to roughly triple production to more than 200,000 tonnes a year by 2028 — a long-term bet on electric-vehicle demand made just over a year after a $6.7 billion acquisition, and during a deep slump in lithium prices." category: "Markets" category_url: https://boursel.com/category/markets author: "Marcus Feldman" published: 2026-06-24T23:30:00.000Z updated: 2026-06-24T23:30:00.000Z canonical: https://boursel.com/article/rio-tinto-bets-on-lithium-as-its-fastest-growing-business tags: ["rio-tinto", "lithium", "mining", "commodities", "ev-batteries"] --- # Rio Tinto Bets on Lithium as Its Fastest-Growing Business Rio Tinto, the world's second-largest mining company, said lithium is now its fastest-growing division and aims to roughly triple production to more than 200,000 tonnes a year by 2028 — a long-term bet on electric-vehicle demand made just over a year after a $6.7 billion acquisition, and during a deep slump in lithium prices. Rio Tinto, a company built over 150 years on iron ore, aluminium and copper, says its newest business is now its fastest-growing one: lithium. Jérôme Pécresse, who heads the company's aluminium and lithium unit, told the Fastmarkets Global Lithium conference in Las Vegas that lithium is expected to grow faster than any of Rio Tinto's other divisions, [Reuters reported](https://www.mining.com/web/rio-tinto-sees-lithium-as-fastest-growing-division-executive-says). ## The growth target Rio Tinto is aiming to lift its lithium output to more than 200,000 tonnes a year of lithium carbonate equivalent by 2028, up from a baseline of roughly 75,000 tonnes after its recent acquisitions — close to a tripling of production — with a target operating (EBITDA) margin around 50%, according to Reuters' account of Pécresse's remarks. Lithium carbonate equivalent is the industry's standard way of comparing different lithium products on a common basis. Much of that growth is concentrated in Argentina, part of the "lithium triangle" of high-altitude salt flats spanning Argentina, Bolivia and Chile that hold the world's largest lithium brine deposits. Rio Tinto is expanding its Rincon brine project there and developing the Sal de Vida carbonate project, and it is investing in direct lithium extraction — a newer technology that pulls lithium from brine faster and with less water than traditional evaporation ponds. ## How it got here The foundation of the strategy was a deal. On March 6, 2025, Rio Tinto [completed its $6.7 billion all-cash acquisition of Arcadium Lithium](https://www.riotinto.com/en/news/releases/2025/Rio-Tinto-completes-acquisition-of-Arcadium-Lithium), paying $5.85 a share and rebranding the business Rio Tinto Lithium. The purchase handed Rio Tinto a portfolio spanning brine operations in Argentina, hard-rock mining in Australia, an integrated project in Quebec and conversion plants in the United States, Europe and Asia — along with a customer list that, [per Rio Tinto](https://www.riotinto.com/en/products/lithium), includes major battery and automotive buyers. Lithium is the critical ingredient the strategy rests on. It is the lightest metal, and in a lithium-ion battery — the type that powers most electric vehicles and grid storage — lithium ions move between the battery's two electrodes to store and release energy. There is no commercially proven substitute at scale, which makes lithium supply a gating factor for the shift to electric transport. ## The timing problem The bet comes at an awkward moment for the metal. Lithium prices collapsed from their late-2022 peak, when lithium carbonate in China briefly traded above 500,000 yuan a tonne, as a wave of new supply outran the pace of EV adoption. Prices have remained far below that peak, squeezing margins across the industry and forcing some producers to delay projects. Rio Tinto has framed its move as a long-cycle wager rather than a trade on today's prices — buying into a depressed commodity to be positioned for a demand curve it expects to steepen through the 2030s. That is a familiar mining playbook, but it requires patience and a balance sheet that can absorb years of thin margins. ## Why it matters For Rio Tinto, the lithium push is both a growth engine and a hedge. The company still earns the bulk of its profit from iron ore sold largely to Chinese steelmakers, a business tied to construction cycles that have softened. Lithium offers exposure to electrification, a demand driver that is structurally independent of steel. The open question is timing: whether lithium prices recover quickly enough to justify the $6.7 billion outlay and the planned expansion. Rio Tinto is effectively telling investors it is willing to wait. Whether the market rewards that patience will depend on how fast EV demand — and lithium prices — turn back up. ## Sources - [Rio Tinto sees lithium as fastest-growing division, executive says](https://www.mining.com/web/rio-tinto-sees-lithium-as-fastest-growing-division-executive-says) - [Rio Tinto Completes Acquisition of Arcadium Lithium](https://www.riotinto.com/en/news/releases/2025/Rio-Tinto-completes-acquisition-of-Arcadium-Lithium) - [Rio Tinto Lithium — products and operations](https://www.riotinto.com/en/products/lithium)