Lithium mines in North Carolina

A narrow belt of rock west of Charlotte made North Carolina the world's main source of lithium from the 1950s to the 1980s. The mines closed when cheaper brine from Chile took over. Now two of them are planned to come back.

Lithium mines in North Carolina: map

All of the state's lithium sits in one strip of the Piedmont between Kings Mountain and Lincolnton, 30 to 50 km west of Charlotte. Hover or tap a site for what it is.

The Carolina tin-spodumene belt

The belt is a swarm of pegmatite dykes, coarse granite-like rock that crystallised from the last, lithium-rich melt of a granite about 340 million years ago. The lithium mineral is spodumene, in pale green-grey crystals that can be a metre long. The belt was first worked for tin (cassiterite) and mica; lithium came later. It is one of the best-studied spodumene districts in the world.

Spodumene is mined in open pits like any hard rock, crushed and concentrated to about 6% lithium oxide, then refined into lithium carbonate or hydroxide for batteries. That is the same route as the big Australian mines (see where lithium is mined).

How North Carolina led the world in lithium

1. 1950s: demand for lithium for hydrogen-bomb fuel and lubricating greases opened Foote Mineral's Kings Mountain mine and Lithium Corporation of America's Hallman-Beam mine near Bessemer City.
2. 1960s–70s: the two mines supply most of the Western world's lithium, for ceramics, glass, greases and aluminium smelting.
3. 1980s: lithium carbonate from brine at Chile's Salar de Atacama undercuts hard rock; Kings Mountain and Hallman-Beam close by the end of the decade. The processing plants stay open and switch to imported feed.
4. 2016 onwards: electric-vehicle batteries revive the belt. Piedmont Lithium starts drilling in Gaston County; Albemarle, which inherited Kings Mountain, plans its restart.

Kings Mountain: Albemarle's mine

The old Foote Mineral pit beside Interstate 85 is now a lake. Albemarle, which is headquartered in Charlotte, plans to dewater it and mine again, with a concentrator on site. In 2023 the Department of Defense awarded it $90 million under the Defense Production Act toward the restart. In January 2024 the company cut spending as lithium prices fell, putting the restart first and deferring a processing plant in South Carolina, and the restart date has since moved back. Kings Mountain also hosts an Albemarle lithium processing plant and research centre.

Carolina Lithium: Elevra's project in Gaston County

Piedmont Lithium proposed an open-pit spodumene mine, concentrator and lithium hydroxide plant on land near Bessemer City and Cherryville. North Carolina's Department of Environmental Quality issued the state mining permit in 2024. In 2025 Piedmont merged with Australia's Sayona Mining to form Elevra Lithium. A draft Title V air quality permit went to a public hearing on 13 October 2026, with comments open until 23 October. The project also needs Gaston County to rezone the site, and neighbours have raised concerns about wells, dust and traffic.

North Carolina lithium from space

1.2 km

Kings Mountain pitKings Mountain widerBessemer City

Lithium elsewhere in the United States

The only lithium produced in the US today comes from brine at Silver Peak in Nevada, and the biggest new mine, Thacker Pass, is being built there too: see lithium mines in Nevada. For the environmental side of hard-rock and brine lithium, see are lithium mines bad for the environment?, and for every country, where lithium is mined.

Questions

Sources

• USGS: Lithium resources of the United States (Professional Paper 1802-K, Critical Mineral Resources)
• Albemarle: $90 million Department of Defense award for Kings Mountain (2023)
• NC DEQ: public hearing on the Carolina Lithium draft air quality permit (September 2026)
• NC DEQ: comment deadline extended for the Carolina Lithium air permit (October 2026)
• E&MJ: Piedmont receives mining permit approval for Carolina Lithium
• USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries: lithium

Checked against the sources above on 24 October 2026.

Figures are as each source publishes them. Company output is shown as the mines report it; nothing here rates a company. Not investment advice.

Keep exploring

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Cover photos from Wikimedia Commons: Super Pit, Kalgoorlie by Kgbo, CC BY-SA 4.0. Pictures: Salar de Atacama, Chile, NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Space Systems, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team (Public domain (NASA media, no copyright)); Pangkalpinang. Mijn 3b. Een reeks koelies bezig met het transporteeren van grond, Europeana (Public Domain Mark 1.0).