# Albemarle Corporation
> The world's largest lithium producer by volume, US-listed Albemarle operates brine and hard-rock assets across Chile, Australia, and the United States that form the backbone of Western EV battery supply.

**Meta:** type: reference · date: 2026-07-03 · heads:  · 4 takes · 1 lenses · 1 regions

## What it is

Albemarle Corporation (NYSE: ALB) is a US specialty chemicals company headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the world's largest [lithium](/zh/n/lithium-dossier) producer by volume as of 2025. Its core business is the Energy Storage segment: extracting and processing lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide sold to battery manufacturers serving the electric-vehicle and grid-storage markets. The company also produces bromine specialty chemicals for flame retardants and industrial uses. The three principal lithium sources are brine concessions in Chile's Salar de Atacama, hard-rock spodumene mines in Western Australia, and a brine operation at Silver Peak in Esmeralda County, Nevada, the oldest active lithium mine in the United States.

## History

The company traces its origins to Albemarle Paper Manufacturing Company, founded in Richmond, Virginia, in 1887, and became a publicly traded specialty-chemicals business in 1994. In 2015, Albemarle acquired Rockwood Holdings, gaining a 49% stake in the Talison Lithium joint venture, which operates the [Greenbushes](/zh/n/tianqi-greenbushes-phase3-2026) hard-rock mine in Western Australia alongside Tianqi Lithium's 51%, and also acquiring lithium brine extraction assets in Chile's Salar de Atacama under a CORFO concession. That acquisition also relocated the company's headquarters from Richmond to Charlotte. In 2019, Albemarle secured a 60% stake in the Wodgina hard-rock spodumene deposit, also in Western Australia, in a joint venture with Mineral Resources, and commenced construction of the Kemerton lithium hydroxide conversion plant near Bunbury.

## Current state

The 2023 lithium price collapse forced a two-year restructuring. Full-year 2024 revenue fell to US$5.4 billion with a net loss of US$1.2 billion, including US$1.2 billion in restructuring and asset write-off charges. Albemarle halted construction of Kemerton Trains 3 and 4, placed Trains 1 and 2 on care-and-maintenance, moved its Chengdu, China conversion facility to maintenance mode, and in October 2025 agreed to divest the Ketjen catalyst-refining business to ChemCat Acquisition, contributing to a combined US$648 million in divestiture proceeds and a US$1.3 billion reduction in outstanding debt.

By Q1 2026, lithium price recovery had lifted Energy Storage net sales to US$891 million, up 70% year-on-year, and restored company-wide net income to US$319 million, a 672% increase. The US EPA issued a Record of Decision for the [Kings Mountain](/zh/n/albemarle-kings-mountain-2026) spodumene project in Gaston County, North Carolina, in March 2026, clearing the principal federal NEPA hurdle for what would be the first US hard-rock lithium mine since the 1980s; the site holds an estimated 300,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent. Simultaneously, Albemarle filed a US$3.1 billion [direct lithium extraction](/zh/n/direct-lithium-extraction-dossier) environmental application with Chile's COREMA regional authority, targeting 90% brine recovery versus roughly 40-50% achieved by conventional evaporation ponds.

## Relationships

Albemarle's most strategically sensitive relationship is with the Chilean government and CORFO, the state development agency that administers the Salar de Atacama brine concession. Chile's 2023 National Lithium Policy granted Codelco a state-sector lead role, and the resulting [SQM-Codelco JV](/zh/n/chile-sqm-codelco-jv) created new regulatory uncertainty about the terms Albemarle can expect when its CORFO concession comes up for renewal. In Western Australia, the Kemerton idling has drawn criticism from the state government, which had backed the facility as a domestic value-add project. The Talison Lithium JV arrangement puts the world's first and third-largest lithium producers, Albemarle and Tianqi, in joint control of the world's largest hard-rock lithium mine, a concentration that has drawn periodic antitrust attention. The US Inflation Reduction Act's foreign entity of concern provisions, phased in from 2025, create a strong policy incentive for Albemarle to redirect capital toward FEOC-compliant US assets, primarily Kings Mountain, and away from non-qualifying Australian and Chilean supply chains.

## What to watch

Chile's COREMA review of the US$3.1 billion [DLE](/zh/n/direct-lithium-extraction-dossier) project and whether CORFO concession terms are renegotiated at renewal are the most consequential mid-term unknowns. Kings Mountain state and local permits in North Carolina remain outstanding and determine the timeline to first ore. The Kemerton divestiture outcome matters for the US battery supply chain: an IRA-qualified buyer would preserve a FEOC-compliant Australian hydroxide pathway, while an Asian buyer would not. Albemarle's own 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance ranges from US$0.9 billion at roughly US$10/kg LCE to US$4.4 billion at roughly US$30/kg LCE, a spread that captures the company's extreme price leverage and makes [lithium](/zh/n/lithium-dossier) spot pricing the single most important variable for Albemarle shareholders.

## Regional takes (batched by bias / lens)

### official record
- **Albemarle Corporation Investor Relations** (United States, en) — Q1 2026 earnings release: net sales US$1.428 billion (+32.7%), net income US$319 million (+672%), Energy Storage adjusted EBITDA US$551 million, reflecting lithium price and volume recovery after the 2024-2025 trough.
  Source: https://investors.albemarle.com/news-and-events/news/news-details/2026/Albemarle-Reports-First-Quarter-2026-Results/default.aspx
- **Albemarle Corporation** (United States, en) — Official corporate timeline: 1887 founding in Virginia, 1994 public listing as specialty-chemicals company, 2015 Rockwood Holdings acquisition and headquarters move to Charlotte NC, 2019 Wodgina stake and Kemerton project launch.
  Source: https://www.albemarle.com/us/en/who-we-are/history
- **PR Newswire / Albemarle Corporation** (United States, en) — Full-year 2024 results: revenue US$5.4 billion, net loss US$1.2 billion, US$1.2 billion in restructuring and write-off charges, Kemerton Trains 3-4 construction halted, 2025 capex guidance cut more than 50% year-on-year.
  Source: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/albemarle-reports-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-2024-results-302375042.html
- **US Securities and Exchange Commission** (United States, en) — Albemarle 10-K annual report for fiscal year 2025, filed February 2026: full financial statements, asset descriptions for Salar de Atacama, Greenbushes, Wodgina, Silver Peak, and Kings Mountain, plus risk factors and segment overview.
  Source: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000915913/000091591326000018/alb-20251231.htm

## Across the graph
- Related: [[albemarle-kings-mountain-2026]], [[energyx-project-lonestar-dle-2026]], [[chile-sqm-codelco-jv]], [[lithium-dossier]], [[direct-lithium-extraction-dossier]], [[tianqi-greenbushes-phase3-2026]]
- Entities: Corporate:albemarle, Commodity:lithium, Direct Lithium Extraction, Corporate:sqm

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