Chinese miners in $2.5b payday from Australian lithium holdings

China’s mining giants have extracted at least $2.5 billion from local lithium operations – in the form of dividends and share sales – over the past year, even though some of those investments would be unlikely now amid tighter restrictions on the sector.

Strong lithium prices in that period handsomely rewarded Tianqi and Ganfeng, the earliest foreign investors in Australia’s lithium industry and large shareholders in the country’s two biggest mines, Greenbushes and Mount Marion respectively.