Greenbushes owners Talison and Albemarle pocket $6b in dividends as production surge offsets price slump

The owners of the rich Greenbushes lithium mine have pocketed more than $6 billion in dividends after posting one of the biggest profits recorded in WA by a privately owned company. Talison Lithium’s $6.3b profit for 2023 is exceeded only by the $7.3b earned by Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting in 2021 on the back of record iron ore prices. It betters the last annual results of most of Australia’s top-200 ASX-listed companies and is double the $3.2b profit posted by Talison for 2022 after flat costs and increased production at the expanding Greenbushes, 250km south of Perth, made up for weaker prices for lithium. Talison is owned by a partnership between China’s Tianqi and the ASX-listed IGO (51 per cent) and US group Albemarle (49 per cent). IGO’s market disclosures provide regular insight into Greenbushes’ operations but filings by the Talison holding company, Windfield Holdings Pty Ltd, offer a more comprehensive view of the financial performance of the mine, which sits atop the world’s highest-grade and biggest hard-rock lithium deposit. The latest accounts, signed off 10 days ago, show the miner’s revenue leapt 77 per cent to $9.9b in the year to December 31 as Greenbushes’ annual production capacity increased to about 1.5 million tonnes of lithium-rich spodumene from just over 1Mt in 2022. However, while there was no commentary attached to the results, revenue was likely skewed by a now-changed pricing mechanism linked to prices seen over the previous three month period, a strategy that inflated revenues because of the lag to spot price falls. The low-cost Greenbushes product is sold to Tianqi and Albemarle for conversion into battery-grade lithium hydroxide at their plants in WA and overseas. According to the filings, the owners pocketed $6.2b in dividends during the year, with a further $71.7m paid already in 2024. Greenbushes is eyeing further expansion to 2.5Mt over the next few years, though its ambitions have been tempered by last year’s collapse in lithium prices on lower-than-expected demand from battery makers eased. Tianqi and Albemarle will subsequently take less concentrate in the first half of 2024, prompting IGO to warn in January that Greenbushes’ production will be trimmed back. The mine is expected to turn out 1.3Mt to 1.4Mt tonnes for the year.