R3 Lithium Starts Georgia Operations With 2,500-Tonne Recycled Lithium Carbonate Line

Highlights

• R3 Lithium opened a 154,000-sq-ft Covington, Georgia facility with 30,000 MT shredding capacity and a 2,500 MT lithium carbonate production line.
• The plant demonstrated commercial-scale 99%-purity lithium carbonate from 100% recycled material in 2025, backed by $15M raised and ~$1B in offtake agreements.
• China controls nearly 65% of lithium refining and 80% of global battery recycling capacity, making U.S.-based recycling a strategic supply-chain priority.
• IEA projects recycled batteries could supply 20–30% of lithium, nickel, and cobalt demand by 2050, complementing but not replacing domestic mining.
• Key investor metrics to watch include recovery rates, feedstock cost, utilization, product qualification, and operating margins at the Covington plant.

R3 Lithium (opens in a new tab) has initiated operations at a 154,000-square-foot Covington, Georgia recycling complex with 30,000 metric tons of battery-material shredding capacity and an existing 2,500-metric-ton lithium carbonate production line. R3 says the facility demonstrated commercial-scale production of 99%-purity lithium carbonate from 100% recycled material in 2025. It has raised $15 million and reports roughly $1 billion in signed offtake agreements, including with Singapore-based commodities trader Trafigura (opens in a new tab).

REEx Insight — The Mine Above Ground

America’s lithium problem is not simply finding lithium. It is turning lithium into usable material inside a secure supply chain. Lithium mining is more diversified than rare earths: Australia, Chile, and China collectively produced about 85% of mined lithium in 2023. But downstream concentration tightens dramatically. China refined nearly 65% of lithium, while Chile handled another 25%; China also produces almost 85% of cathode active materials and more than 90% of anode active materials.

R3 therefore attacks a strategically important bottleneck: recycling plus refining on U.S. soil. Batteries and manufacturing scrap become an “above-ground mine”; shredding produces black mass, then lithium is recovered into carbonate without sending that intermediate material overseas.

Under REEx’s Great Powers Era 2.0™, that is important because resilience requires multiple lanes: domestic mining + allied mining + domestic refining + recycling + downstream battery manufacturing. Recycling cannot replace mining—IEA projects recycled batteries could supply roughly 20–30% of lithium, nickel, and cobalt demand by 2050—but it can reduce marginal import dependence while creating a supply source that grows as the installed battery fleet ages.

There is a second strategic wrinkle: China also dominates recycling, accounting for about 80% of global battery pretreatment and material-recovery capacity in 2023. Covington is therefore competing against China at another downstream choke point.

Proof Meets the Scale Test

The plant exists and has produced lithium carbonate. But continuous commercial production is still being established. R3’s claim that Covington could represent more than 50% of U.S. lithium-carbonate output in 2027 is a forecast, not an achieved market share.

Investors should now watch recovery rates, feedstock cost, utilization, product qualification, and operating margins. Those metrics—not square footage—determine whether recycling becomes strategically important and economically durable.

REEx Bottom Line: R3 has not solved U.S. lithium dependence. But Covington demonstrates a strategically powerful idea: the next domestic lithium deposit does not necessarily have to be underground.