Industry News & Events
A worldwide lithium shortage could come as soon as 2025
The world could face a shortage for lithium as demand for the metal ramps up, with some analysts forecasting that it could come as soon as 2025 reports CNBC. BMI, a Fitch Solutions research unit, was among those that predict a lithium supply deficit by 2025.
Lithium Demand to Keep "Ballooning" Beyond Expectations
Lithium demand is showing no signs of slowing down, supporting the high price levels seen in the past year. And as electric vehicles continue to hit the roads, the need for lithium will only continue to grow.
Forecasts show that lithium demand could hit anywhere between 3 million and 5 million tonnes by 2030, Anthony Tse of investment firm Franklin Templeton said during a panel discussion at this year’s Benchmark Week, as reported by Priscila Barrera at Investing News Network.
The Surge on EV Demand from China Elevates Lithium Prices
Prices for lithium carbonate, a key ingredient in lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries for electric vehicles, rallied to record-highs on booming EV demand in China. A single tonne of lithium carbonate, one of the refined forms of lithium that’s used in batteries, now costs over $75,000, up from around $6,500 at the beginning of 2021.
Lithium carbonate prices rose by around 496% in 2021, and have surged by over 100% year-to-date as of November 2022. Increasing EV demand and sales are driving prices from the demand side, with the lack of supply tightening the squeeze.
Carmakers switch to direct deals with miners to power electric vehicles
Demand for electric cars is taking off but the bottleneck of raw materials for batteries such as lithium, nickel and cobalt is threatening to slam the brakes on their rollout — a problem that could lead to factory shutdowns and land carmakers with billion-dollar fines for missing emissions targets.
Carmakers are going right down the chain to the mines themselves, both to secure the supplies cheaply and to ensure ethical and emissions standards are met. This sentiment was expressed at the the FT Mining Summit.
Canada vaults to No. 2 in Bloomberg’s annual battery supply chain ranking
BloombergNEF’s 2022 global lithium-ion battery supply chain report ranks 30 leading countries’ lithium-ion battery supply chain performance based on 45 metrics across five key themes: availability and supply of key raw materials; manufacturing of battery cells and components; local demand for electric vehicles and energy storage; infrastructure, innovation, and industry as well as environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) considerations.
On those measures, Canada ranked third, eighth, tenth, fourth and sixth — a solid top-10-or-better across-the-board showing that no other country could match.
Lithium Price Climbs to Record on Tight Supply
The price of lithium, the key material for making electric vehicle batteries, soared to a record high in China reflecting strong demand and tight supply.
The spot price of battery grade lithium carbonate climbed to $83,700/ton on November 11, 2022, more than double the price at the beginning of the year, according to data from Wuxi Stainless Steel Electron Exchange Center.
As reported by Lithium News, lithium prices have been on a robust upward track since 2021, powered by the global EV boom.
Lithium-ion battery market to reach $430 billion by 2033
As reported by Lithium News, according to a recent report by IDTechEx, the lithium-ion battery market will reach over $430 billion by 2033, with electric vehicles and transportation representing the largest market.
Battery electric cars will constitute over 90% of lithium-ion demand by 2033, and will be driven by the increasing adoption of electric vehicles with more stringent emissions targets and goals and as EVs begin to reach cost parity with conventional ICE vehicles.
INDUSTRY EVENTS
The State of Charge Battery Conference
Calgary, Alberta
Tuesday, October 24, 2023
The Battery Metals Association of Canada is hosting of the “State of Charge Battery Conference”, an exciting event filled with insightful discussions and networking opportunities.
Direct Lithium Extraction 2023 Conference
Los Angeles, CA
December 11-12, 2023
Direct Lithium Extraction 2023 is a leading trade show for showcasing cutting-edge innovations in lithium extraction technologies.
Toronto, Ontario
March 3-6, 2024
PDAC is the World’s Premier Mineral Exploration & Mining Convention is the leading event for people, companies and organizations connected to mineral exploration.
Lithium Rally Has More Room to Run, Thanks to US Climate Bill
Lithium prices have already been on a monumental tear. But if there’s one thing that the industry’s top executives agree on it’s that there’s room to go even higher, reported Bloomberg News on December 8, 2022.
That’s partly thanks to President Joe Biden’s signature climate and tax bill known as the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). A key piece of the legislation is focused on bolstering production and processing for critical battery metals like lithium within the US and with countries that have free-trade agreements with Washington.
The Future Value of Disruptive Materials
Backed by large investments in climate-friendly technologies, the market for disruptive materials is poised for robust growth, the Visual Capitalist’s Aran Ali takes a deeper look at the expected value of these 12 critical materials and metals between 2027 and 2030.
When it comes to the fastest growing market, lithium reigns supreme with a CAGR of over 23% between the forecast period of 2021 and 2028.
Altogether, the collective market value for these top materials is expected to be worth over $800 billion by the end of the decade. And in the subsequent years, as efforts to tackle climate change accelerate, the collective value of these materials may well hit $1 trillion.
2022 was a big year for EV battery plants in the U.S. $73 billion big
Camila Domonoske at NPR Business writes that BloombergNEF projects that the market share of E.V.s will approach 40% by the end of the decade. The underlying production capacity is even more encouraging. In the United States, investments in battery manufacturing reached a record $73 billion last year — three times as much as the previous record, set the year before. Globally, battery manufacturing capacity grew almost 40% last year, and is projected to grow 500% by just 2025. By that year, lithium mining is expected to be triple what it was in 2021.
And the winner for most volatile commodity this decade goes to…lithium
Frik Els at Mining.com reports that 2022 was the second year in a row lithium was the best performing among the 15 commodities tracked by US Global Investors. The battery metal gained another 72.5% in 2022 following a stunning 442.8% jump the prior year.
Investors in the sector over the last decade can be forgiven for feeling whiplashed. Surging demand from the electric vehicle and energy storage market accounts for lithium’s spectacular rise, but much of the volatility is also due to the size of the market.
Transition Metals Become $10 Trillion Opportunity as Demand Rises and Supply Continues to Lag
Demand for key metals needed for the deployment of energy transition technologies such as solar, wind, batteries and electric vehicles will grow fivefold by 2050, under BloombergNEF’s so-called Net Zero Scenario. Supply, on the other hand, is constrained due to a lack of investment, increasing country risk toward mining, and ever more depleted reserves.
Western Canadian Lithium as a Critical and Strategic Mineral
An article entitled “Western Canadian Lithium as a Critical and Strategic Mineral for Clean Tech Battery Storage Technologies” was published by Rudiger Tscherning and Brady Chapman on the University of Calgary Faculty of Law web site, and examined the development and expansion of Western Canada’s lithium industry as one critical and strategic minerals (CSM) industry in Canada. Novel lithium mining and extraction technologies in Western Canada may allow lithium to be extracted from subsurface brines and put Canada on the forefront of supplying the increased demand for lithium resources both domestically and internationally.
As the Canadian Minerals and Metals Plan 2019 notes, reliable supplies of CSMs are essential to key sectors of the Canadian economy, including a growing focus on “clean technologies”. Clean tech battery storage technologies are vital for the scaling-up of the clean transportation sector, including the expansion of electric vehicles and trucks. CSMs are required for the manufacturing of renewable energy generation installations such as solar panels and wind turbines, and for the subsequent storage of the generated renewable electricity in batteries to address intermittency and supply challenges.
CSMs are also critical for Canada’s national security, as well as the security of Canada’s strategic allies. Already, Canada’s global partners, first and foremost the United States of America, are acting to diversify and to secure their supplies of CSMs through strategic partnerships and joint actions.
More than 300 new mines required to meet battery demand by 2035
More than 300 new mines could need to be built over the next decade to meet the demand for electric vehicle and energy storage batteries, according to a Benchmark forecast.
At least 384 new mines for graphite, lithium, nickel and cobalt are required to meet demand by 2035, based on average mine sizes in each industry, according to Benchmark. Taking into account recycling of raw materials, the number is around 336 mines.
The data highlights the height of the raw material challenge facing global automakers as they look to scale up production of electric vehicles this decade. Demand for lithium ion batteries is set to grow six-fold by 2032, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.
What is driving lithium prices in 2022 and beyond?
It’s been almost a year since lithium prices hit an inflection point to all time highs, reports Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.
Yet Benchmark’s global average lithium prices have held steady since April’s record high levels, with Chinese technical and battery-grade lithium carbonate prices continuing to increase.
Since the beginning of June Chinese battery-grade lithium carbonate prices have increased marginally but year-to-date Chinese battery-grade lithium carbonate prices have risen by 90% while lithium hydroxide is up by 127%.
“Government sway is now in play and we are seeing it in full force in the USA and just the beginning in Canada,” Simon Moores, chief executive of Benchmark, said. “The lithium ion battery is now geopolitical. And if EVs mean lithium ion batteries, then EVs mean mining.”
Lithium mining: How new production technologies could fuel the global EV revolution
Lithium is the driving force behind electric vehicles, but will supply keep pace with demand? New technologies and sources of supply can fill the gap reports McKinsey & Company.
Despite expectations that lithium demand will rise from approximately 500,000 metric tons of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) in 2021 to some three million to four million metric tons in 2030, McKinsey believes that the lithium industry will be able to provide enough product to supply the burgeoning lithium-ion battery industry. Alongside increasing the conventional lithium supply, which is expected to expand by over 300 percent between 2021 and 2030, direct lithium extraction (DLE) and direct lithium to product (DLP) can be the driving forces behind the industry’s ability to respond more swiftly to soaring demand.
Although DLE and DLP technologies are still in their infancy and subject to volatility given the industry’s “hockey stick” demand growth and lead times, they offer significant promise of increasing supply, reducing the industry’s environmental, social, and governance (ESG) footprint, and lowering costs, with already announced capacity contributing to around 10 percent of the 2030 lithium supply, as well as to other less advanced projects in the pipeline.
Canada races ahead of US on current lithium project pipeline
As reported by Henry Lazenby in mining.com, Canada’s lithium supply response is expected to post strong growth through 2031 and outperform the US, a new analysis by Fitch Solutions Country Risk & Industry Research suggests.
Canada’s current solid project pipeline, prospective investments into petroleum brine production techniques in Alberta, and a fast-growing battery and electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing base in Quebec and Ontario provide more significant upside in the medium-term due to Canada’s more attractive regulatory environment, the authors say.
Mine permitting times are shorter compared with the U.S., and the current government, led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, has proposed C$3.8 billion in spending in April to support the mining sector. This includes the creation of infrastructure for remote projects, of which C$1.6 billion were dedicated to critical minerals projects.
Alberta Minerals strategy and action plan
Renewing Alberta’s Mineral Future is a strategy and action plan for Alberta to capitalize on its potential to become a preferred producer and supplier of metallic and industrial minerals and mineral products. The plan outlines a path to unlock Alberta’s untapped mineral resource potential, helping to meet increasing demand while creating jobs and attracting investment. It also highlights the importance of responsible and efficient exploration, development, manufacturing, and recycling of minerals and mineral products.
Alberta, as a leader in responsible development, has the opportunity to be at the forefront of global mineral exploration and development. The province is home to vast geological potential and an experienced workforce, and has the necessary infrastructure in place to support a growing minerals sector.