Responsible Water Management Plays Key Role in Sustainability

Sept. 19, 2024

Fresh water plays an essential role in our lives – as individuals, communities, a company and an industry. 

Albemarle understands water is a shared resource, and we have committed to responsible water management, as outlined in our 2023 Sustainability Report.  

Being a good steward of our water resources is a core component of Albemarle’s sustainability strategy. We work with several third-party organizations that inform our priorities and initiatives. 

“We recognize our responsibility to manage the potential effects of our operations on other water users,” says Meredith Bandy, Albemarle’s vice president of investor relations and sustainability. “We work to identify, assess, analyze, and manage potential effects on water quality and quantity. Our water management plans are regularly reviewed, and we value collaboration with community partners and government and regulatory entities.” 

We have endorsed the United Nations’ Global Compact CEO Water Mandate, and we are committed to continuous improvement of our water management. 

 We actively engage with the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA) and use its standard to conduct independent assessments of our water management in the Salar de Atacama in Chile. 

We prioritize water reduction projects in areas facing higher overall water risk, such as Chile (high) and Jordan (very high) by the Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas of the World Resources Institute.  

We are on track to reduce the intensity of freshwater usage by 25% by 2030 from 2019 baselines levels in Chile and Jordan. Our Chilean operations reached the target ahead of schedule with the optimization of the thermal evaporator at the La Negra site. Our measurement of freshwater use does not include brine, a mineral-based resource that we use in Chile and in Silver Peak, Nevada. The extreme salinity of brine makes it unusable as a freshwater source for human consumption or agricultural uses. 

Here are some highlights of our responsible water management around the world: 

Jordan 

• At our Jordan Bromine Company joint venture, we have implemented multifaceted programs to reduce freshwater consumption. One of these, an investment in a sodium bromide evaporator and bromine optimization (NEBO) project, could lead to significant sustainability benefits. This process innovation takes a waste stream and converts it to a saleable product without additional freshwater consumption. When this technology is fully operational later this year, it is expected to reduce freshwater use at the site by more than 10%. 

Chile 

• We invested $100 million in a thermal evaporator to recycle water in our La Negra conversion plant, which has allowed us to reduce freshwater use by 30% per kilogram of lithium carbonate produced compared to 2019 baseline levels.  
• Albemarle does not consume any freshwater in the production of lithium brine at the Salar de Atacama. We are allocated 0.5% of the freshwater rights in the basin and only use about half of that for other purposes, such as washing equipment. 
• We are the first lithium producer to undergo a third-party assessment and publish our report under the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA) standards. We’re proud of to have achieved an IRMA 50 level of performance of our lithium brine extraction and concentration site in the Salar de Atacama.  

U.S. 

• In Magnolia, Arkansas, we convert stormwater captured in an artificial marsh to freshwater for our operations, reducing the burden on the local underground aquifer.  
• In Nevada, at our Silver Peak facility, Albemarle is permitted by the state to extract 20,000 acre-feet annually of brine for beneficial use, from which the company produces lithium carbonate. We continuously monitor the groundwater systems, both freshwater and brine, to ensure that freshwater wells meet drinking water standards and that operations remain safe and sustainable well into the future.  
• At Silver Peak, we installed a recirculation process that continuously flushes water through our soda ash slurry solution (SASS) treatment line.