Intense global competition in lithium mining: Australia's richest woman takes action, giant Rio Tinto suffers another defeat.

In the increasingly fierce global battle for lithium resources, which is one of the key raw materials for electric vehicle batteries, the recent competition for lithium mines in Australia saw the world's largest lithium miner, American Albemarle, lose to Australia's richest person and ultimately withdraw from the battlefield.

On Monday local time, Albemarle announced that it was abandoning its $42 billion acquisition of Australian lithium developer Liontown Resources, as Australian billionaire Gina Rinehart had acquired a significant stake in the company, enough to block the deal.

In fact, Albemarle had long set its sights on Liontown's Kathleen Valley project, one of Australia's most promising deposits, and had been trying to acquire Liontown since the beginning of the year, but was repeatedly rejected.

Finally, in September, Liontown accepted Albemarle's offer of AUD 3 per share, a 20% increase from the offer made in March.

Albemarle was so generous in its offer that everyone thought they had finally secured the difficult Liontown deal.

Unexpectedly, a competitor emerged. On October 10th, Rinehart's company, Hancock Prospecting, increased its stake in Liontown from 16.69% to 18.36%.

Subsequently, Rinehart continued to increase her stake, and as of now, Hancock's stake in Liontown has increased to 19.9%.

This stake is slightly below the threshold required to launch a counter-acquisition of Liontown, but it is already enough for Rinehart to vote against the deal in the shareholder vote and prevent the transaction from proceeding.

Albemarle cited "increasingly complex transaction-related issues" as the reason for abandoning the acquisition of Liontown, without explicitly stating that it was because of the intervention of this female billionaire.

Liontown is Rinehart's largest investment project in the lithium industry to date, and analysts predict that she will not make a counter-acquisition offer.

Kate McCutcheon, an analyst at Citi Australia, said that given the risks associated with the production of Liontown's mines, the likelihood of Hancock launching a takeover bid is "unlikely".

In a statement in September, Hancock stated that it would work with other shareholders and pointed out that there is an opportunity for the Western Australian lithium market to create value downstream from mineral extraction.

Liontown has hired UBS to raise funds for its critical Kathleen Valley project, and the mining company is aiming to complete the financing this week. The company hopes to raise AUD 450 million (approximately USD 285 million) to start production at the project by mid-2024.

It is reported that the Kathleen Valley spodumene project is one of the five largest lithium projects in the world, and Liontown has already signed supply agreements with Ford, Tesla, and LG Energy Solution. Liontown halted trading on the Australian stock market on Monday, as the company is in the process of completing financing for the development of its mine. The stock was trading at AUD 2.79 per share when it was halted, which is lower than Yabao's offer price of AUD 3 per share.

Liontown stated that despite the acquisition being abandoned, Yabao has expressed a "positive view" on the Kathleen Valley project and the management team.