But I am back here with our next fireside chat, and I'm very much looking forward to our conversation with Dale Henderson, who's Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer at PLS, to talk about navigating ongoing market volatility and the outlook ahead for PLS. And more broadly, I mean, really, it feels quite apt to have this conversation on this day and be talking about lithium, one of the rare earths, one of the rare minerals, on a day when the Prime Minister has been meeting with the President of the United States, and we're having this broader conversation. So if I could, Dale, just if you will indulge me to start on that meeting: is there going to be, do you think, any impact on PLS or on lithium as a result? Although it's early days, but will there be impact based on that conversation and the deal that's going through?
Yes. Now, thank you, Sarah, and look, firstly, thanks, IMARC, for having us back. As it relates to today and the announcement between Australia and the US, which came out this morning, it is certainly a positive sign for critical minerals, and it's a positive sign for the relationship between the US and Australia. And to me, it sort of just marks this moment in time for the world where critical minerals is front and center for all countries because it is so critical to the future everyone's trying to build, whether it's the shift in energy or the new product stepping forward. Well, that's all enabled through critical minerals. So as to the eight billion plus deal today, yeah, as I say, very positive.
When you talk about critical minerals and lithium in particular, there's been enormous volatility, which can make things a little bit challenging when you're running a company where that's your bread and butter, so to speak. But in terms of how you at PLS navigate that, because you've done it very successfully, so before we go macro, how do you navigate those ups and downs and make it work?
Sure. Probably the key to us, our strategy for the business is all predicated on making sure we're successful in this environment. As you say, the lithium market has been incredibly volatile, and that has been the case not only for lithium but other of these other emerging mineral sets coming forward serving this sort of global shift. So as to our strategy, it's really set up to protect us against the downside, so those troughs in the market, whilst also positioning us so we can capitalize on the inevitable upswing. So what that looks like in practice for PLS is we have a best-in-class balance sheet amongst our peer set. We're 100% independent, so we can sort of control our destiny. And as it relates to our growth options, well, we haven't bet the farm, so we've done small bets and diversified bets, so that as this industry starts to grow, well, we can grow carefully with that.
And you've also done collaborations, so maybe you can tell us a little bit about the partnership that you have with POSCO in South Korea.
Sure. So we've got a series of JV partnerships with whom we think are the best in the business. That includes POSCO, being the manufacturing powerhouse in South Korea, who are a very diversified business. We've got a study pathway with Ganfeng, arguably the world's largest and most proficient lithium chemical converter, and we've also got a JV with KAI for the purpose of a midstream project. So we've partnered with a series of partners within industry. But as it relates to POSCO, what we've done together with POSCO is build and operate one of the first lithium hydroxide facilities outside of China. So we have a 43,000-ton lithium hydroxide plant in Guri, South Korea, which is operating today, and we're busy ramping that up. So we think this is an exciting part of our diversification strategy, and to be producing hydroxide in South Korea, we think is pretty neat, given it's one of the very few battery hub ecosystems outside of China where there's the car making, the battery making, and now the chemical making, courtesy of our joint venture. So very exciting times.
So Dale, one of the things that's really been a hallmark of this conference is a talk about how everything is changing. New players are entering the marketplace. That's absolutely happening when it comes to lithium. You have had some opportunity to listen to some of the other speakers, I suspect, but even more broadly, when we see India and Thailand suddenly in the frame, Saudi Arabia, what is that? How does that affect the industry, and how does PLS navigate that?
Well, yeah, it's an incredible moment in the world's history. And so when you step back and you think about, we haven't encountered a period like this probably since moving from organic fuels into carbon-based fuels, coal, so on and so forth. We're in a similar transition period where not only have you got this emergence of urgency, geopolitical urgency from various countries, including the ones you mentioned, but it's happening at the same time with a technical evolution as well, where we're seeing different types of forms of energy, whether that's solar or more support for nuclear, coupled with different types of technology use cases, whether that's swapping out existing product types from combustion cars to EVs or new product types of the likes of new data centers needing energy storage. You've got eVTOLs, which are the flying electric vehicles. All of this is happening at the same time. So it makes for a very turbulent landscape to navigate, but also a very exciting landscape to navigate because it presents huge opportunities for the right companies to serve this massive growth market.
You definitely have to have your seatbelt on for the market right now. But it's also tricky because it's changing in terms of what we anticipate we're going to need lithium for, and then actually where the market goes and what drives it. We started with ceramics, and now we're looking at storage. Can you kind of lay out the landscape for lithium and where and how the market is being driven right now?
I wish I could lay out the landscape. It's a big unknown, because as I say, those driving forces shaping the market are rampant, and it's all happening at the same time. So there's a geopolitical level, there's a technology level, different battery types, different use cases. As it relates to geopolitics, there's carrots and sticks, so tariffs and subsidies. There's a lot going on at the same time, and it's evolving rapidly. But it's also worth reflecting on how far it's come so quickly. And just by way of a sort of quick look back, it was only the 1970s when the first commercial lithium battery emerged. Prior to that, lithium was used for medicines and ceramics. And fun fact, even Seven Up, the drink, used to have lithium in it back in the 1930s, which was removed around the 1950s. So, not till the 1970s, first battery, and really fast forward to as recent as 2018, half the world's lithium demand was still in batteries and ceramics. So over the last sort of eight to nine years, that picture has completely changed, where batteries now speak for 90-plus percent of total demand. So it's been this rapid change, and so what we're seeing is this emergence of multiple new industries, new mines, resources serving this growth set, a whole giant manufacturing industry being built out globally, serving all those use cases. So it's all happening at the same time.
