Rock Tech lowers Guben lithium converter costs

The plant is not even online yet and Rock Tech Lithium is already lowering operating costs. The measures mentioned above will reduce expenditures by €27.7 million annually – from €120.8 million to €93.1 million. According to Rock Tech, several factors contribute to the lower projection. Transport and logistics expenses are expected to fall by €11.7 million, or 47 per cent, from €25 million to €13.3 million, following the adoption of a revised logistics concept.

A revised spodumene supply contract with improved Incoterms accounts for €10.4 million of these savings. Reagent procurement costs are set to fall by €2.8 million to €23.1 million, while refined estimates of annual fees, insurance and IT costs will reduce fixed costs by €4.2 million to €5.8 million.

In addition, Rock Tech anticipates savings of up to €6.3 million through the reuse of leach residues, following a memorandum of understanding with German cement producer Schwenk Zement GmbH & Co. KG. According to the press release, the partners intend to finalise binding offtake agreements in due course. Maintenance and labour adjustments are expected to deliver a further €2.7 million in annual savings. Higher energy costs are expected to be offset by a sustainable long-term supply agreement currently under negotiation with Enertrag.

“This significant cost reduction is a major step forward,” says Mirco Wojnarowicz, CEO of Rock Tech. “In today’s volatile market, establishing a lean and competitive project is not just beneficial—it’s essential. By reducing our modelled costs by 23 per cent, we are not only improving competitiveness but also significantly strengthening the financing case for Guben.”

The company is also reviewing its capital expenditure model and plans to release an updated financial model and profitability analysis in the coming weeks.

The Guben Converter, scheduled to come online in 2027, is designed to produce 24,000 tonnes of battery-grade lithium hydroxide annually, equivalent to around 30 GWh of battery capacity, or enough for roughly 500,000 electric vehicles per year. Earlier this year, Rock Tech Lithium announced that it was working with researchers from RWTH Aachen University to further increase the lithium yield in the conversion process in Guben.

In recent months, Rock Tech has already received further grants from various public funding sources. The German-Canadian company is also one of the selected recipients of the EIT RawMaterials KAVA programme. The subsidy in this case amounts to €800,000. The grant is linked to a project (‘OLiVer’) at EIT RawMaterials to further develop the lithium conversion process and other innovations at the Guben site. Specifically, the German subsidiary Rock Tech Guben GmbH is working with international partners such as the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), VITO (Belgium) and Admiris (Greece) to increase the efficiency of lithium extraction from spodumene and further develop the production of lithium hydroxide monohydrate (LHM).

Importantly, the funding follows the European Commission’s recognition of the converter project in Guben as a strategic project under the Critical Raw Materials Act. In March, a total of 47 projects to secure and diversify access to raw materials in the EU were classified as strategic, including lithium processing in Guben.

Update 29 Oktober 2025

Rock Tech Lithium has announced another milestone in the development of its lithium refinery in Guben, located on the German-Polish border – this time concerning investment costs (CapEx) rather than operating costs. The capital expenditure required to commission the facility is expected to fall from 730 million euros to 680 million euros – a reduction of almost seven per cent. In September 2025, Rock Tech had already reported a 23 per cent reduction in operating costs (OpEx).

Several “targeted optimisations” are expected to generate the 50-million-euro saving. Of this, 22 million euros will come from an optimised plant design – including adjustments to packaging systems, façade elements, the energy monitoring system, truck scales, and sections of the pipeline network. A further seven million euros will be saved through revised storage capacities made possible by the company’s new logistics concept. Changes in process technology, which, according to Rock Tech, comply with regulatory requirements, are expected to contribute an additional 14 million euros in savings.

“The combination of modelled operating cost reductions and estimated capital cost savings will fundamentally change the business case for Guben,” explains Henrik Wende, Managing Director of Rock Tech Guben GmbH. “With potential production costs that position us competitively in the international market and simultaneously reduced investment expenditures, we would increase the economic viability of the project. To complete the financing of the Project, these optimizations are decisive factors that we expect to significantly improve our position.”

rocktechlithium.com, rocktechlithium.com (update)