Lithium is the word on every investors’ lips right now and for good reason. Equities in the key battery metal have been on a tear as low supplies and rising EV demand has seen prices soar up to five times higher than the price factored in by car manufacturers.
“Right now, lithium prices are at least 3x past the pain point for electric vehicle makers,” Simon Moores, the head honcho of pricing agency Benchmark Minerals Intelligence, says.
(Bloomberg) — The highest bid for lithium at an online sale surged by 140% in just six months, an indication the stampede for supplies of the main ingredient used in electric vehicle batteries could get even more intense.
Pilbara Minerals Ltd.’s auction of spodumene concentrate — a partly-processed form of lithium — attracted a top bid of $5,650 a ton on Wednesday for a cargo of 5,000 tons. That compares with $2,350 at the previous sale in late October on the Australian miner’s Battery Metal Exchange.
Batteries, and more precisely battery metals, are poised to replace chips as the new bottleneck for the auto industry.
While there’s been a lot of attention on nickel, especially after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, another key metal — lithium — is a source of concern for manufacturers dealing with all manner of supply chain challenges.
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Long Point First Nation is calling for more comprehensive environmental reviews after an Australian mining company said it wants to expand operations in the area. The Anishinabek community situated in Winneway is concerned about the impacts of lithium mining, a key component in the global efforts to move towards sustainable energy.
As environmental initiatives push consumers towards electric vehicles, debates rage over how “green” is the production of key elements like lithium, as mining can devastate landscapes.
Elon Musk’s recent musings that high lithium prices may force Tesla Inc to make its own supply of the electric vehicle battery metal have fueled hopes by some that the billionaire entrepreneur will instead opt for a buyout of an established mining company.
The auto giant already has supply contracts for nickel, lithium and a range of other EV metals from suppliers across the globe. But it needs more, and industry analysts say Tesla may soon realize that building a mine or processing facility from scratch is not as easy as it sounds and the automaker should instead consider a buyout.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/
Australia needs to start focusing on utilising its abundant natural advantages to take advantage of the global financial push for green energy, an expert has said. Director of Climate Energy Finance (CEF) Tim Buckley told The Epoch Times he believes that Australia has the potential to become a world leader in the green revolution that is now he says, inevitable.
However, the country is lagging behind. “Australia should be a renewable energy superpower,” Buckley said. “We should be a renewable mining industry superpower.”
Auto makers are trying to secure supplies of critical materials for meeting their electric-vehicle goals, particularly as prices rise . Ford Motor, General Motors, and Tesla have all made some recent strategic moves to shore up materials to produce EV batteries. On Tuesday, General Motors (ticker: GM) signed a cobalt supply deal with global mining giant Glencore (GLEN.London).
Cobalt is used along with metals such as lithium, nickel, and iron in rechargeable EV batteries. Cobalt gets more attention than other EV materials because most of the world’s cobalt is mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has a reputation for poor mining practices and a weak human rights record. The cobalt GM is buying from Glencore , however, will be sourced from Australia.
Mexico’s president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) is ready to send a bill to Congress next week declaring lithium a “strategic mineral” and reserving future exploration and mining for the government if lawmakers fail to pass his constitutional reform tightening state control of the electricity market.
The country’s lower house is set to vote on Sunday on a constitutional energy overhaul that includes nationalizing lithium and guaranteeing state-owned utility Comisión Federal de Electricidad, or CFE, 54% of the market.
Lithium is one of the key minerals used in the manufacture of batteries for electric vehicles
A Sudbury mining executive told the Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce Wednesday that he is working hard to keep managerial control of his company and its assets in Northern Ontario.
Trevor Walker, President and CEO of Frontier Lithium, was speaking at the chamber’s president’s series luncheon held in Copper Cliff. Walker said Frontier has spent more than 10 years developing an incredibly rich and significantly large lithium mineral deposit in Northwestern Ontario. Lithium is one of the key minerals used in the manufacture of batteries for electric vehicles (EVs).
https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/
LA PAZ, Bolivia—With the swearing-in of Chilean President Gabriel Boric last month, the three countries of Latin America’s so-called lithium triangle—Chile, Bolivia and Argentina—all have leftist leaders who want their governments and citizens to benefit more from the extraction of their countries’ natural resources.
At first glance, this could present an opportunity for the three countries to push for the creation of an OPEC-style price-setting cartel for lithium. They are all rich in the coveted resource, and there has been speculation about them banding together to form such an organization for years.
https://northernontario.ctvnews.ca/
It was a packed house at Bryston’s in Copper Cliff on Wednesday as members of the Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce came out to hear the latest on lithium. Specifically, they were there to hear from Frontier Lithium president Trevor Walker, who touched on the company’s plans to develop the Pak deposit in northwestern Ontario.
The Sudbury-based company could soon become one of the biggest lithium suppliers in North America given the value of the deposit at Pakeagama Lake. “We’re blessed to also have former Chief Bart Meekis of Sandy Lake First Nations on the board of directors,” said Walker.
One of Australia’s biggest lithium mines will resume exports four months sooner than expected as bumper prices for the battery mineral incentivised miners to raise output and extend the life of their mines.
Mineral Resources said “unprecedented global customer demand for lithium product” had convinced it to resume exports from Western Australia’s Wodgina mine in May, rather than the September schedule it had previously given to investors.
April 7 (Reuters) – Rio Tinto, General Motors and even the U.S. Energy Department are investing heavily in a crop of newer technologies that could revolutionize the way lithium is produced for electric vehicle batteries. Now those technologies just have to prove they work on a commercial scale.
If they do, miners will be able to boost global lithium production with a footprint far smaller than open-pit mines and evaporation ponds, which often are the size of multiple football fields and unpopular with local communities.
Lithium-ion batteries are the dominant technology used for energy storage today but since the start of the war in Ukraine, the price of imported lithium has gone up twofold, said MIT professor Yang Shao-Horn. It is “now the most expensive component” in lithium-ion batteries, she told conference participants. The price of other key metals has also soared.
“This sharp increase in the cost of lithium potentially can drive other [storage] technologies and move them faster,” she said, pointing to sodium-ion battery chemistries as one example. This technology is “moving rapidly,” nearly matching lithium-ion’s battery performance, with costs expected to be “substantially lower,” Shao-Horn noted.
The supply chain for batteries, wind turbines, solar panels, electric motors, transmission lines, 5G — everything regarding electrification and decarbonization that is needed for a green economy — starts with metals and mining.
A green infrastructure and transportation spending push will mean a lot more metals will need to be mined, including lithium, nickel, and graphite for EV batteries; copper for electric vehicle wiring, charging stations and renewable energy projects; silver for solar panels; rare earths for permanent magnets that go into EV motors and wind turbines; and silver/ tin for the hundreds of millions of solder points necessary in making the new electrified economy a reality.
