Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting and South Korea’s POSCO ink deal for downstream lithium

Australia’s richest person and a South Korean conglomerate are joining forces to scout the globe for a new lithium factory.

Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting and POSCO Holdings this week signed a memorandum of understanding to build a processing plant capable of churning out 30,000 tonnes of an unspecified downstream lithium product, according to a POSCO statement.

Hancock declined to comment.

POSCO and Hancock are now searching for a site to build the processing facility and after that will finalise investment details.

The duo already have a long history of doing deals together.

POSCO owns a 12.5 per cent stake of Hancock’s flagship Roy Hill iron ore mine and in 2022 an agreement between the two was signed to “investigate the commercial feasibility” of a hot briquetted iron production project in Perth.

That same year POSCO and Hancock teamed up to buy Australian natural gas company Senex Energy.

POSCO is increasingly spreading its tentacles into lithium processing to bed down a steady supply stream for the manufacture of cathode materials. POSCO sells those cathode materials to fellow Korean giant Samsung, which assembles the rechargeable batteries used in electric vehicles.

Two weeks ago POSCO and Pilbara Minerals completed the second production train of their 43,000 tonne-a-year lithium hydroxide processing plant in Korea.

POSCO also has extensive lithium interests in Argentina. Mrs Rinehart has been a vocal supporter of Argentinian President Javier Milei, who on Tuesday notched up his first year in office.

The key lithium investments of Mrs Rinehart’s Hancock are in WA via a 18.1 per cent stake in miner Liontown Resources and 30 per cent of the Andover project.