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Lithium

The next major innovation in batteries might be here – by Akshat Rathi (Quartz.com – August 7, 2018)

https://qz.com/

Lithium-ion batteries were first introduced to the public in a Sony camcorder in 1991. Then they revolutionized our lives. The versatile batteries now power everything from tiny medical implants and smartphones to forklifts and expensive electric cars.

And yet, lithium-ion technology still isn’t powerful enough to fully displace gasoline-powered cars or cheap enough to solve the big energy-storage problem of solar and wind power.

Dave Eaglesham, the CEO of Pellion Technologies, a Massachusetts-based startup, believes his company has made the leap beyond lithium-ion that will bring the battery industry to the next stage of technological disruption. He and his colleagues have accomplished something researchers have been struggling with for decades: they’ve built a reliable rechargeable lithium-metal battery.

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Battery boom skeptics seen driving short holdings in lithium miners – by Melanie Burton (Reuters U.S. – August 3, 2018)

https://www.reuters.com/

MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Short selling of shares in lithium miners SQM, Albemarle, Galaxy and Orocobre has ballooned this year, reflecting what fund managers say is a sign of growing scepticism of an imminent battery boom.

The heavy shorting of the stocks puts investors at risk of a short squeeze if project timelines meet or beat expectations, or if near-term oversupply of battery chemicals proves to be more seasonal than structural, fund managers and analysts said.

Short selling entails a bearish investor selling shares he or she does not own in the hope of profitably buying them back at a lower price in the future. If the shares rose instead, an investor would need to close, or “cover”, their position by buying back the shares for a loss.

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C-Suite Moves Rock Lithium as Industry Expands in Battery Boom – by Laura Millan Lombrana (Bloomberg News – July‎ ‎26‎, ‎2018‎)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Unexpected leadership changes within a day at the world’s two largest lithium producers underscore concerns over a lack of executive experience in the industry amid a nascent boom for the battery metal.

On Wednesday, Albemarle Corp. announced the replacement of its lithium president John Mitchell, who was named chief of a Chilean exploration company hours later.

Also on Wednesday, Soc. Quimica y Minera de Chile SA said Chief Executive Officer Patricio de Solminihac will leave the company by the end of the year. Both executives will be replaced internally.

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Tesla Trauma Shows the Lithium Market Needs a Chill Pill – by David Fickling (Bloomberg News – July 25, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Isn’t lithium meant to be a mood stabilizer? That’s certainly not what’s happening in the stocks of companies that produce the element used in rechargeable batteries and psychiatric medications. News this week that Tesla Inc. sent a memo to some suppliers asking them for payment rebates to help it become profitable shook shares in lithium miners.

The Solactive Global Lithium Index, in which FMC Corp., Albemarle Corp., and Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile SA or SQM have a weighting of about 40 percent, fell as much as 2.1 percent Monday to its lowest level in 11 months. SQM slumped as much as 4.8 percent, while Albermarle dropped 4.1 percent.

You can see the logic behind these moves. Tesla is the big beast of the electric-vehicle market, and electric-vehicle batteries make up the bulk of lithium demand — right?

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London Metal Exchange moves further towards launch of lithium contract – by Pratima Desai (Reuters U.S. – July 18, 2018)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – The London Metal Exchange has asked companies that assess prices of battery-grade lithium to submit proposals to supply a reference for the cash-settled contracts it plans to launch next year, the exchange said.

Interest in battery metals such as cobalt, nickel and lithium has soared over the past year on the automotive industry’s ambitious plans to produce electric cars and cut noxious fumes from vehicles powered by fossil fuels.

“We have issued an RFP to a number of price reporting agencies,” a spokeswoman for the exchange said. “(We) aim to invite shortlisted candidates to present their proposals at the LME’s electric vehicle metals advisory group on 10 October to facilitate the participation of industry users in the selection of the global reference price for lithium.”

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Potential lithium ‘hotspots’ can be identified from space, study finds (Irish Examiner – July 12, 2018)

https://www.irishexaminer.com/

Satellites detecting changes in trees from space could help identify potential “hotspots” of lithium situated underground in Cornwall, researchers have said.

Global demand for lithium, a vital component in “next generation” batteries for electric vehicles and storage for renewable power, is expected to grow by around 400% by 2025.

Lithium in hot brine springs in Cornwall could provide the UK with a domestic source of the metal, which has been described as “the new gasoline” due to its potential to help in the shift to low-carbon energy supplies.

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Zimbabwe mining: Platinum has promise and lithium looms large – by Tonderayi Mukeredzi (The Africa Report – July 11, 2018)

http://www.theafricareport.com/

Harare: President Emmerson Mnangagwa desperately wants to show that he can turn the economy around and is looking for quick wins from the mining sector, which had been spooked by his predecessor’s indigenisation plans. Mnangagwa does not want to completely liberalise the sector, and the government still insists on majority local ownership for platinum and diamond mining projects.

A new mining bill now making its way through parliament proposes to force mining companies to list on the local stock exchange, though foreign minister Sibusiso Moyo told an audience at Chatham House in London on 25 April that the clause would be taken out.

Platinum is the main focus for miners, and in March, Cyprus-based Karo Resources signed a deal with a promise of $4.2bn in investment in the Mhondoro-Ngezi region. A lot of platinum goes into catalytic converters and other devices to reduce emissions on petrol-powered cars.

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Canadian startups focus efforts on zinc, instead of lithium-ion, for future batteries – by Tyler Hamilton (Globe and Mail – July 11, 2018)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The energy storage market is a battlefield, littered with the corpses of failed newcomers that underestimated how deeply entrenched lithium-ion technology would become.

We’re talking 95 per cent entrenched, a market position growing stronger as demand for electric vehicles, wireless devices and cordless tools rise. Costs continue to plunge, with “gigafactories” and “Chinafication” driving the same economies of scale that turned solar photovoltaic panels into a commodity.

This has researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology worried about “technology lock-in.” Their fear, outlined in a recent white paper, is that lithium-ion has become so dominant that it is preventing newer, better battery chemistries from getting funded, gaining market traction and achieving the scale needed to survive, let alone compete on cost.

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These battery skeptics think cobalt and lithium prices are overcooked – by Luzi Ann Javier (Financial Post/Bloomberg – July 2018)

https://business.financialpost.com/

Tesla boss Elon Musk says the amount of cobalt his company will use to make electric cars is headed toward ‘almost nothing’

Call them battery skeptics. Bets on surging demand for electric vehicles have made cobalt and lithium hot commodities, but some investors say the outlook is leaving them cold.

While prices have more than doubled in the past three years on worries over shortages of the metals used in batteries, Bank of America Merrill Lynch is predicting “severe oversupplies” in the lithium market, and Subaru Corp. and Mazda Motor Corp. are for now keeping their focus on conventionally powered vehicles.

“The craziness that you see in cobalt will in many ways actually be corrected,” Christoph Eibl, the chief executive officer of asset manager Tiberius Group, said in an interview. “There’s so much uncertainty about how future technologies will be applied and how much replacement and substitution will actually occur. There will be batteries that will use much less lithium.

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Lithium is exploding but Canada’s distance from China has miners at a disadvantage – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – July 7, 2018)

https://business.financialpost.com/

Australia is in the midst of a lithium mine boom whereas Nemaska will be the first new lithium project in Canada in years, when construction is finished around 2020

This spring, Nemaska Lithium Inc’s chief executive Guy Bourassa returned to Canada from a trip to Asia, jet lagged and tired — and still months away from closing a deal to sell lithium from his company’s planned operations in Quebec to South Korean battery maker LG Chem Ltd.

“It seems to be taking longer than we expected,” Bourassa said in an April interview with the Financial Post. This week, Bourassa finally closed the deal. LG Chem will buy 7,000 tons per year for five years beginning in 2020, when his mine and conversion plant are expected to be operating.

A major stumbling block, he explained in an interview this week, which helped drag negotiations out for six months, was figuring out where to obtain the ‘market’ price for lithium.

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Cobalt, lithium and nickel are booming due to China’s insatiable appetite for electric vehicles – by Jane Li (South China Morning Post – June 30, 2018)

http://www.scmp.com/

World prices of cobalt, lithium and nickel are booming as China’s insatiable need for the battery packs used in electric vehicles drove up demand, recreating the economic bonanza that fuelled commodity-exporting countries a decade ago.

The price of lithium, a soft silvery white metal usually mined from brines, has soared by more than 300 per cent in the past two years. The price of cobalt, mostly mined as a by-product of nickel and copper, surged 129 per cent last year while nickel surged 4.6 per cent to a two-year high in London.

At the centre of the boom is China’s support for developing electric vehicles (EV) to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. Electric vehicles made up a mere 2.3 per cent of the 30 million vehicles produced last year, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. That proportion may quintuple to 12 per cent by 2025, according to a forecast by JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s analyst Nick Lai.

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China’s firms are scouring the world for mineral ores in pursuit of nation’s electric dream – by Jane Li (South China Morning Post – June 30, 2018)

http://www.scmp.com/

Chinese companies are scouring the world’s mines for lithium, cobalt and other minerals that go into battery packs used in electric vehicles, resuming the kind of voracious hunt for resources that added to economic booms in exporting countries a decade earlier.

They were the first to get off the starting block in getting their hands on these vital minerals, crucial for China’s ambition to lead the world in the production and use of electric and new energy vehicles, where up to 2 million units are expected to ply the nation’s streets by 2020, according to government forecast.

China Molybdenum, a partly state-owned producer of the chemical element, paid US$2.65 billion in 2016 for the Tenke Fungurume Mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo, one of the world’s largest known reserves of copper and cobalt resources.

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Bankers Have Gone AWOL in the Race to Build More Lithium Mines – by David Stringer and Mariko Ishikawa (Bloomberg News – July 3, 2018)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

After clinching a deal with a Chinese battery maker in 2016, James Brown figured bankers would be eager to fund his new lithium mine. Altura Mining Ltd. was racing to ship the raw material from Australia to the world’s biggest electric vehicle market as demand was surging.

Instead, while lithium prices kept rising, Brown spent a Christmas holiday cold-calling lenders and jetted around the globe to raise the money. Eventually, Minneapolis-based Castlelake LP, a private equity firm, helped arrange $110 million in bonds. But there was a catch: an interest rate as high as 15 percent, or almost double what banks normally charge for more conventional mining ventures.

“We’d been trying banks we’d known for years,” said Brown, Altura’s managing director, who previously spent 22 years with coal producer New Hope Corp. “They said: Guys we love it, we just don’t have a mandate (for lithium). If you came to us with coal, gold or iron ore, you’d have no worries.”

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Bolivia offers its lithium reserves to India (Gulf News – July 1, 2018)

https://gulfnews.com/

Ambassador says country willing to sign a Preferential Trade Agreement with India for select goods

New Delhi: Bolivia, known to have the largest reserves of lithium, has offered the metal — used in making batteries of electric vehicles, laptops and smart phones — to India.

The South American nation’s ambassador to India, Sergio Dario Arispe Barrientos, said the country has the largest deposit of Lithium and India could explore this opportunity.

Barrientos said his country is willing to sign a Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) — a pact between countries that provides preferential access to certain products by lowering tariff and other conditions — with India for select goods.

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To reduce China’s leverage, rebuild America’s minerals supply chain – by Mark J. Perry (The Hill – June 26, 2018)

http://thehill.com/

Imagine a scenario where the U.S. is entirely dependent on a single nation for oil. You can’t. It’s inconceivable. We would never let one nation — much less a sometimes adversarial rival — dominate our supply of a critical resource. Or would we?

Astoundingly, we have. We are completely import-dependent for 21 mineral commodities, and imports account for more than half of our consumption for 50 critical minerals. Who’s our largest supplier? China.

While much of China’s resource dominance comes from domestic production, it doesn’t end at the border. Chinese companies have come to control the production of key minerals resources in nearly every corner of the world.

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