lithium supply pipeline is filling but will it be enough? andy home - lithium battery price

(
This July 19 story was corrected to remove the wrong reference to Mt Cattlin mine in 16 paragraphs)
Andy's house in London (Reuters)-
The momentum of the electric car revolution is growing.
Without a new start to the revelation, just a week has passed, whether Sweden's Volvo is committed to phasing out the traditional internal combustion engine from 2019, france plans to end sales of gasoline and diesel cars by 2040.
Of course, the poster child of the green technology revolution, Tesla, is leading the charge, and the company is preparing to launch its Model 3, long-awaited break-
From niche to mass market.
The target is to produce £ 20,000 per month by the end of the year.
Whether reality meets such lofty goals remains to be seen.
Due to the "severe shortage" of battery packs, Tesla delivered about 47,000 vehicles in the first half of this year, lower than its own forecast.
Tesla's shareholders are used to this kind of thing, but the delay in the battery pack reminds us that this accelerated technological revolution depends on long-term, complex and still --
A growing supply chain of materials.
We don't know where Tesla's battery bottle is.
The neck appears, but the issue about the reliability of the supply of battery materials extends all the way to the Salt Lake in the Atacama Desert in South America.
In short, is there enough lithium and lithium in the right chemical to support the demand for exponential growth of the battery? FIRST-
The stage supply reaction about a year ago, the answer seems to be "no", which is why the price of lithium has risen, and prices have risen elsewhere in the world, which is an esoteric question that the professional market has been taken seriously.
Since then, the spot price of lithium carbonate has calmed down, and the current transaction price is stable at $18. 00-$21.
According to the publication industrial minerals, $70 per kilogram, compared to more than $25 in early 2016.
This is partly due to the first time
Phase supply response.
New manufacturers such as the Salar de Olaroz brine of Orocobre operate Mt hard drives in Argentina and Neometal Marion
Rock mines are increasing in Australia.
More people will join them in the next 18 months.
An existing oligopolistic enterprise consisting of FMC, Albemarle and SQM Chile is demonstrating its collective capabilities.
Analysts at "lithium spot" expect the supply of lithium carbonate equivalent to grow by about 35,000 tons (LCE)
Production this year is 235,000 tons.
They pointed out that this is basically consistent with the average demand forecast, which means that "demand is either correct or it may be slightly more than 2017 of supply.
"They expect an additional 60,000 tons in 2018.
Our assumption is that all new capacity can be improved smoothly.
This is a big assumption. As the first-
The phase supply response begins, and the second one is now beginning to form.
In this process of chasing more production, the two leaders are Chile's square meter and China's Jiangxi Ganfeng Lithium, the company is now large enough to integrate, at least on the lithium list
The two companies teamed up with primary miner lithium America and Thailand energy company Bangchak to develop the Cauchari salt water business in Argentinaphase 25,000-
The annual output of LCE is expected to be 2019 tons.
After SQM entered the border, it announced in July 11 that it would acquire a 50% stake in Kidman Resources, which is developing the Dutch hard rock project in Western Australia.
First production at 40,000
The operation plan of LCE is 2019 tons per year.
In addition, SQM is expanding its existing operations in Chile, citing the company's chief executive, patro o de Solminihac, as saying it is trying to "seize the opportunity to emerge in the lithium market ".
Solminihac said that SQM estimates that the current demand for lithium is about 200,000 tons, but is "growing at a rate of nearly 14% per year ".
"We believe that global demand is likely to exceed 500,000 tons by 2025.
"All of this may be good news for Tesla and its peers sitting at the other end of the supply chain, but for countless junior miners it seems to be an ominous sign of lithium action.
Understandably, the big three, if Ganfeng is included, are eager not to relax their historical control of the market when it enters a period of potential explosive growth.
But those who wish to be part of the third wave of supply should not lose hope.
Because while supply seems to be stabilizing, demand is still fast --
The elusive part of the Price equation.
In the third quarter of this year, SQM said it believes that lithium demand is "likely to grow by more than 10% per year in the short term ".
Fast forward for 4 months, it raised this estimate by 4 percentage points.
Remember, this is one of the most knowledgeable players in the field of lithium with more than 20 years of experience in operations and marketing.
If it's wrong
At a rate of change in the use of lithium batteries, this is a fair bet and everyone else is trying to understand the fundamentals of this dynamic.
Supply potential-
The demand gap will widen over the next decade.
Even an enhanced consensus is that there will be sufficient supply in the next two years or so, depending on a questionable set of assumptions that new supply can flow effectively and then be integrated into the existing supply production chain.
Other than that, short
In the long run, uncertainty is growing.
Joe Lowry, a lithium industry consultant and commentator, believes that even with the recent announcement of a large number of new projects, "a shortage of supplies is likely to cause major problems in the battery supply chain by 2023. ” (
"Lithium investment at Crossroads", July 17, 2017).
Lowry said that despite the media's hype about lithium, even relatively advanced projects are still struggling to finance, and Tesla's charismatic chief executive Elon Musk "seems to think, if lithium comes
"In fact, even Mr. Musk may have a second idea of lithium supply after the" serious delay "in obtaining the battery pack in the first half of this year.