BUENOS AIRES/SALTA — The "Hombre Muerto" salt lake, sitting 4,000 meters above sea level in Argentina's Salta Province on the far side of the globe, was reached on the 19th local time after four connecting flights. As barren as its Spanish name — "dead man" — suggests, the vast salt flat was a harsh landscape where scarcely a blade of grass could be found, evocative enough of the Mars depicted in the film "Passage to Mars."
POSCO Holdings (005490.KS) first acquired the mining rights to this wasteland in 2018, quietly building its lithium business by drilling dozens of wells that gush brine and creating artificial ponds larger than 1,000 soccer fields. Including Hombre Muerto North, which POSCO Holdings additionally secured this year, the salt lakes span a total of 287 square kilometers — 99 times the size of Yeouido (2.9 square kilometers) and about half (47%) of Seoul (605 square kilometers). The funds spent on acquiring the mining rights and building the first and second brine lithium plants alone exceed $2.7 billion (3.7 trillion won). Cumulative operating losses since commercial operation began in October 2024 approach 300 billion won.
The roughly 600 employees of POSCO Argentina wore brighter expressions this year after the operation posted its first operating profit of 11 billion won in the second quarter, eight years after entering Argentina. "The ramp-up — the process of raising output toward target levels — is complete, and the bitter cold of midwinter is easing, so second-half earnings should improve further," said POSCO Argentina head Park Hyun, raising hopes of an annual operating profit. The result also marks the fruit of 17 years of persistent effort since POSCO Holdings began developing its own lithium extraction technology in 2010.
Both inside and outside POSCO Group, some forecast that POSCO Argentina's operating margin will reach 34% next year and 41% the year after. The projections take into account a new lithium supply contract signed with SK On in February this year, an expected 100% utilization rate within the year, cost savings from the local government's approval of large-scale investment incentives (RIGI), and lithium prices approaching $20,000 per ton.
As POSCO Argentina enters full-scale profitability, the Triple Core vision championed by POSCO Group Chairman Chang In-hwa has gained further momentum. To boost production of lithium — which cannot be made fast enough to meet demand — the company has decided to bring forward construction of its third and fourth brine lithium plants to 2027 and 2030, respectively. Under such plans, POSCO Holdings says it can complete a production system yielding 173,000 tons of lithium annually by 2033, combining brine lithium from Argentina and ore-based lithium from Australia, positioning it to leap into the world's top five lithium companies. Triple Core is a business portfolio, unveiled by Chairman Chang at an investor day for chief executives early last month, built on three pillars: "industrial resources" such as steel, "strategic resources" such as lithium, and "energy resources" such as liquefied natural gas (LNG).
