Former Woodside Energy chief executive Peter Coleman is now chairman of the world’s third-largest lithium producer, Arcadium Lithium. But there’s no way he’s about to build any lithium refining or processing operations in Australia.

He says that in China, he can have a lithium hydroxide factory built quickly and for a quarter of the price. And in Canada, where his company is midway through the construction of a lithium hydroxide plant as well as a lithium mine, it’s a co-investor with a state-owned corporation, Invest Quebec. It is also receiving generous financial incentives from the federal and provincial governments and leveraging the great advantage of proximity to the huge market of US car manufacturers just across the border.