The first lithium production facility in the Middle East will be established in the Khalifa Industrial Zone Abu Dhabi (KIZAD), a subsidiary of AD Ports Group’s Industrial Cities & Free Zone (IC&FZ) cluster.
The facility will be built by Australia’s Lepidico Ltd, a global lithium exploration and development company. Lepidico will be deploying a first-of-its-kind designed process in the building of the plant.
Covering an area of 57,000sqm, the first phase of Lepidico’s development for the AED348 million ($95 million) chemical plant will house clean-tech L-Max and LOH-Max process technologies.
The process extracts lithium and recovers valuable byproducts from lithium-mica and phosphate minerals. As an eco-friendly, zero-waste facility, the residue, predominantly gypsum, will be repurposed for use in the construction industry.
The vertically integrated Phase 1 Project (P1P) comprises two small-scale open-pit mines that will feed a mineral concentrator in Namibia, following which the lepidolite concentrate will be shipped to the facility being developed in KIZAD via Khalifa Port.
Abdullah Al Hameli, Head of Industrial Cities & Free Zone Cluster, AD Ports Group, said, “The project is a critical enabler for developing an electric vehicle supply chain in the Middle East.”
Joe Walsh, Managing Director, Lepidico, said, “In our endeavor to develop a sustainable lithium industry, we plan to integrate social, economic, environmental, and health and safety opportunities as part of the project design criteria and strive for a zero-waste process through our innovative and proprietary technologies.”