Often called "white gold," the metal lithium is so light it floats on water, but its price has been sinking like a rock over the past year.
Reduced sales of electric vehicles, together with oversaturation of the lithium ore market, led to the fact that the price of the most important lithium compound - lithium carbonate - fell by three quarters from June 2023.
This particularly hit Australia, which is the world's largest producer of lithium, with a share of 52 percent of world production last year.
After Chile, Australia has the largest reserves of this metal, located primarily in its west and to a lesser extent in the Northern Territory.
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The drop in prices led to the closure of certain mines, as well as to a reduction in production, which left hundreds of workers without work.
Some producers, however, believe that the demand for lithium and its price will return to the previous level, so they are expanding production, such as Pilbar Minerals from Perth.
"We've seen in the past that the price of lithium can change quickly," CEO Dale Henderson told ABC News recently.
Kingsley Jones, founder of the investment firm Jevens Global, which follows the metals and mining industry, has a similar opinion.
Lithium is still very strategically important for the energy transition, he told the BBC.
The demand for batteries that would store electricity produced by solar and wind energy has increased, he added.
However, some analysts warn that oversupply will keep the market under pressure until at least 2028.
Mining lithium ore in Australia requires three times more energy than in other countries that produce large quantities of the metal, such as Chile and Argentina, explains Professor Rick Valenta, director of the Sustainable Minerals Institute at the University of Queensland.
The reason is that lithium ore, known as spodumene, is extracted from solid rock.
In Chile and Argentina, lithium is obtained by evaporation from salt water that collects under huge salt flats.
Australia exports partially processed ore called spodumene concentrate, primarily to China.
The price of spodumene concentrate has also fallen significantly and according to some reports has reached lowest value from August 2021.
Chinese companies process spodumene into solid lithium and into two compounds used in batteries - lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate.
This is where the real money lies, as currently a ton of lithium carbonate costs $10.280, while a ton of spodumene concentrate is $747.
Companies in Australia are therefore looking to build their own lithium processing facilities.
At the same time, scientists working in government institutions are looking for a way to make lithium mining more environmentally friendly.
If they succeed in this, Australia could become one of the greenest producers of this metal.
At the moment, a large amount of poisonous chlorine gas is released during production.
"There is only one method of production, which has several disadvantages.
"That way is very expensive and not very efficient. Most importantly, chlorine gas is produced. It has serious consequences for the environment," says Dongmei Liu, a researcher at the Australian state science agency CSIRO.
She and her team are working to develop a new process for extreme cooling of lithium vapor to eliminate chlorine gas emissions.
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