Lithium's Rally Outpaces Even the Bulls

BMI, a unit of Fitch Solutions, just raised its 2026 price forecast for Chinese lithium carbonate to roughly $20,100 a tonne — nearly double last year's average — even as it warns the current rally has outrun the market's underlying fundamentals. The firm expects prices to cool into 2027 and 2028 before genuine deficits return in the early 2030s, but says the reason lithium hasn't already cracked is energy storage: China's battery output for grid storage jumped 55% year-over-year in May, and BMI now projects global storage capacity will nearly quadruple by 2035. It's a reminder that lithium's next chapter may be written by the grid as much as by EVs. (mining.com)