Indian critical minerals producer Lohum intends to establish an annual lithium carbonate refining capacity of 30,000 metric tonnes in India, founder and CEO Rajat Verma told Nikkei Asia.
The Indian facilities will process feedstock obtained from the company’s newly initiated mining operations in Zimbabwe, establishing an integrated supply chain for the country’s electric vehicle (EV) battery industry.
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Lohum’s expansion represents the “first” overseas lithium extraction venture by an Indian company, seeking to counter Chinese supply dominance with comparable domestic processing cost structures.
Under the planned arrangement, Lohum will allocate $100m across the next 12 to 18 months to build an ore-processing plant in Zimbabwe.
This facility will convert mined ore into lithium sulphate to comply with Zimbabwe’s export restrictions on raw ore, prior to shipping it to India for final processing into lithium carbonate.
According to GlobalData, the parent company of Just Auto, India imports more than 80% of its critical mineral requirements, leaving EV batteries vulnerable.
It added that China’s refining dominance creates supply, price, and geopolitical risks, prompting India to diversify sourcing, recycle batteries, and establish domestic capacity.
Verma expects the domestic refining operations to reach full capacity within three years.
Output of the refined lithium will mainly supply Lohum’s planned 20,000t cathode materials plant, a Rs20bn ($210.8m) facility engineered specifically for nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) chemistries.
Verma projected that NMC will represent 30% to 35% of India’s EV battery sector, whilst also matching export demand in the US.
Any surplus refined lithium carbonate will be supplied to third-party cathode manufacturers.
Established in 2018 as a battery recycling firm, Lohum is targeting revenue of Rs100bn by 2029.
To secure raw inputs for its cathode roadmap, the group is assessing early-stage nickel mining assets located in Indonesia and the Philippines, which could supplement the 1,000t of secondary nickel it currently recovers each year in Gujarat.
