Brine sources are massive, cheaper sources, but take years to come online. The problem was there were about 3-4 major players in Lithium (it was actually a sid

Brine sources are massive, cheaper sources, but take years to come online. The problem was there were about 3-4 major players in Lithium (it was actually a side product for them) and they didn't see the demand rising as quickly as it did. This allowed for a massive price increase, which made it feasible for hard-rock miners to come in. With a decent project, you could go from finding the resource to production in 12-18 months, as the ore is normally close to the surface, and processing for export is relatively simple. So the next 12 months a lot of these projects are starting to beging production, while the brine players play catch up.