In many packaged food items, if you turn the item over, you may heed the warning: contains traces of nuts.
And with those traces of nuts, you may find traces of lithium.
Lithium is renowned for its application in batteries, medication, and industrial manufacturing, though many are unaware of its natural occurrence in nuts, legumes, cereal grains, and even certain vegetables.
Though the mineral only occurs in microgram quantities for dietary consumption and is dependent on soil composition and the geographic region where the food is grown, it empowers the motif that lithium is the hidden metal of everyday life.
Aside from its minimal appearances in dietary concentrations, in a mining context, the demand for the metal has been consistently on the rise, with explorers, producers, investors, and market watchers buying into its importance for the modern world.
With the net zero emissions by 2050 target being globally adopted to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and stabilise global warming, the demand for lithium is only surging.
Lithium in a nut shell
In the global energy transition, lithium is a key component in rechargeable batteries, which are used in electric vehicles, energy storage systems, and consumer electronics.
Electrification trends and government policy support has driven the demand for lithium in recent years.
As reported by Mining.com.au, lithium is primarily produced from two types of deposits: brine and hard rock, although sedimentary lithium has emerged as a potential third source of supply.
The lithium trend is still on the uprise, experiencing a 166.1% uplift for this year over year as of 3 July 2026, priced at ¥165,250 ($1,478) per tonne, according to Trading Economics.
While lithium is pushing higher over the past year, the metal has seen a 10.32% decrease for the past month.
With the existing price recovery that trumps lithium’s monthly performance, TG Metals (ASX:TG6) CEO David Selfe describes interest as “not particularly aggressive at this stage”, although it is picking up.
“That can change quickly and certainly with explorers still not seeing fair value,” Selfe tells Mining.com.au.
“Once one gets away, FOMO (fear of missing out) kicks in and then it will be game on.”
TG Metals is a gold and lithium explorer focused on advancing its Lake Johnston Lithium Project and the Van Uden Gold Project, both located in Western Australia.
Within the Lake Johnston Project, TG Metals is centering its exploration focus on the Burmeister lithium deposit.
At the beginning of June, the company lodged a mining lease application for the deposit, which was previously modelled from wide spaced drilling to produce an exploration target between 15.6–20.1 million tonnes @ 0.97–1.19% lithium oxide, as reported by this news service.
TG Metals has defined multiple pathways to production for the deposit, with direct shipping ore (DSO) as its flagship approach.
DSO opportunities are possible due to the company’s access to simple crushing and ore sorting onsite at the Lake Johnston Project, with infrastructure nearby to the project, including the Esperance Port.
Additional drilling will be conducted at the deposit to advance the company’s DSO opportunities.
For TG Metals, CEO Selfe says DSO is the “most immediate pathway” to production.
“Theoretically, that could be a circa 12-month timeframe, with permitting our biggest hurdle,” Selfe explains.
“We would be targeting as much DSO as we can get through the Port. If we could get 500,000 tonnes per annum to 1 million tonnes per annum that would be great, but we have to do the work first before we know.
“The main objectives are to progress approvals whilst simultaneously assessing financing opportunities. We have a focus of working with our stakeholders to get ore out of the ground and onto a ship as soon as possible.
“DSO is an opportunity available now and you don’t need tens of millions of tonnes for it to be viable, just near surface and good mineralogy.”
Market goes nuts for lithium
TG Metals says going into the second half of the year, the market can determine whether lithium prices will continue strengthening through ongoing growth trends in battery energy storage systems (BESS), along with potential mine restarts for hard rock lithium.
“Permitting challenges will always be there but the financing landscape has improved a lot. Mainly in the form of alternative financing such as offtake and contract prepayments rather than bank debt or equity raisings,” Selfe adds.
“The primary drivers are the increase in BESS battery applications and lite-use EV battery consumption coupled with some supply disruptions, particularly in Africa.
“The growth in BESS batteries has been the highest and is looking like continuing with demand from energy backup systems for the high growth in data centres seen worldwide.”
TG Metals’ Lake Johnston sits around 300km from Kalgoorlie, located in the Southern Goldfields region of Western Australia, covering over 50km of the Lake Johnston Greenstone Belt.
On the other side of the world, sentiment remains similar.
Solis Minerals (ASX:SLM) is an energy metals explorer diving into South American assets.
The company acquired its Brazil Lithium Project, located in the Araçuaí–Salinas Lithium Valley in Minas Gerais, from a Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) subsidiary in late April.
Branching out from its primarily copper-heavy assets, Solis CEO Mitch Thomas says to identify strengthened lithium prices in H2 2026, he is focused on three things: the demand for EVs and energy storage systems, supply and refining activities in Africa and China, as well as the pace and cost of project restarts.
“Those three will dictate price direction,” Thomas tells this news service.
“Higher prices help, but they don’t remove the key hurdles — permitting, capital, and execution risk.
“The market is more disciplined now, so only quality projects will get funded.”
Thomas adds that this market volatility is what has restricted lithium projects from securing debt and offtake funding.
Permitting still appears as a common issue for lithium explorers, even in South America, though market sentiment is on the rise.
“Sentiment has improved, particularly for exploration and development projects. But investors remain selective given longer timelines and permitting complexity,” Thomas says.
For Solis, South America’s lithium supply stands out, which Thomas says positions the region well against Australia.
“I will show some bias here, but the faster timeframes, lower costs, and depth of opportunities position South America very well from a supply perspective,” he adds.
Lithium nuts up north
Also covering the lithium space in South America is Libra Energy Materials (CSE:LIBR), which is expanding its Canadian exploration footprint while maintaining a presence in Brazil.
Led by CEO Koby Kushner, Libra Energy organises capital expenditure based on market performance, and as a result, the company is currently in a position to spend more on exploration, albeit focused on Canada.
“Lithium prices drive investor appetite and therefore our cost of capital,” Kushner tells Mining.com.au.
“In weak markets, we focused on low-cost exploration in Brazil.
“With improving prices, we’re conducting more drilling and shifting efforts back to Canada while keeping a strategic toehold in Brazil.”
Early in June, Libra Energy obtained 100% ownership of the SBC Lithium Project in Ontario, Canada, following KoBold Metals making a final option payment to privately held Bounty Gold, as reported.
The option agreement dated back to June 2023, comprising staged cash payments totalling C$380,000 ($385,397) over three years.
“The rebound reflects a powerful rebalancing in fundamentals, not just sentiment, with demand growing faster than supply,” Kushner says.
“While EV adoption continues, the big ‘demand surprise’ from analysts came from battery energy storage systems, up dramatically due to artificial intelligence data centres, grid stabilisation, and renewable integration.
“This is the early stage of a longer-term structural deficit.”
Libra Energy Materials is a Canadian mineral explorer focused on the discovery and development of the critical minerals necessary for the green energy transition.
Write to Maddison Elliott at Mining.com.au
Images: Mining.com.au, iStock & TG Metals
