Battery minerals miner IGO Limited’s push into lithium has driven a six-fold profit surge and record shareholder returns, even as the company warned its lithium assets would take longer to ramp up, and its nickel mines would miss their production target.

IGO transformed itself in 2020 when it bought a stake in Australia’s best lithium mine and the nation’s first battery grade lithium processing plant. The company reported the rewards of that bottom-of-the-market acquisition on Tuesday, when lithium was easily the biggest contributor to a $591 million half-year profit.