SPONSOR: Lomiko Metals LMR:TSX-V – A Canadian exploration-stage
company discovered high-grade graphite at its La Loutre Property in
Quebec and is working toward a Pre-Economic Assessment (PEA) that will
increase its current indicated resource of 4.1 Mt of 6.5% Cg to over 10
Mt of 10%+ Cg through a 21 hole program at the Refractory Zone. Click Here For More Information
In 2010 the US Department of Energy’s Critical Materials Strategy included lithium as one of 14 elements expected to play a vital role in America’s clean energy economy.
Lithium is also among 23 critical metals
President Trump has deemed critical to national security; in 2017 Trump
signed a bill that would encourage the exploration and development of
new US sources of these metals.
According to the US Geological Survey, the United States last year imported around half of 48 minerals and 100% of 18 minerals.
According to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence the US only produces 1% of global lithium supply and 7% of refined lithium chemicals, versus China’s 51%.
A Tesla executive earlier in the year said
the company is worried about a shortage of lithium. The number of EVs
are expected to multiply in coming years, but they can only progress as
fast as the lithium-ion batteries can get built that go into them. Tesla
CEO Elon Musk said, in June of 2019, that in order to ensure Tesla has
enough batteries to expand its product line Tesla might get into mining
lithium for itself.
The world’s leading lithium battery
companies in 2016 produced 29 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of batteries. By 2028
forecasted production is expected to hit 1,049 GWh, an increase of
3,516%!
Consider that in 2018, China sold 1.182
million NEVs (new energy vehicles including electrics and hybrids),
520,000 or 78% more than in 2017.
As China’s mark on the lithium market becomes more pronounced, growth in the sale of lithium end products is taking off.
According to Adamas Intelligence, in
February 2019, 75% more lithium carbonate was deployed for batteries in
electric and hybrid passenger vehicles compared to February, 2018.
At Ahead of the Herd we know that the
lithium market, in a few short years, is going to be in deficit as
troubles ramping up production meet a mounting wall of demand. It’s
obvious Tesla’s CEO understands that in order to grow his company he has
to have a secure supply of lithium.
Lithium price explainer
Before we go any further let’s take a
look at the different prices of lithium; with 11 lithium products
currently being assessed, it can get confusing. While the mineral used
to be priced in long-term contracts like uranium, recently there has
been a push by end-users, particularly automotive manufacturers, for
more price transparency.
As we can see in the price chart below,
short-term the lithium bears have the upper hand, with lithium prices
falling in China and South America, along with the price of spodumene
concentrate in Australia.
How are prices determined? There are three
factors Benchmark Mineral Intelligence uses to set the industry standard
reference prices: quality/ grade of lithium, shipping costs/ volumes,
and the reliability of information given.
The grade and level of impurities affect the
price a miner receives, for the lithium to be processed into spodumene
concentrate, lithium carbonate or lithium hydroxide. Often the product
is refined into the exact specifications required by the end-user.
Currently there are six prices of lithium carbonate, four for lithium hydroxide and one spodumene concentrate price:
- Benchmark Minerals, Lithium Carbonate, 99%, FOB South America, USD/tonne
- Benchmark Minerals, Lithium Carbonate, 99%, CIF North America, USD/tonne
- Benchmark Minerals, Lithium Carbonate, 99.2%, CIF Europe, USD/tonne
- Benchmark Minerals, Lithium Carbonate, 99.2%, CIF Asia, USD/tonne
- Benchmark Minerals, Lithium Carbonate, Battery Grade, 99.5%, EXW China, RMB/tonne
- Benchmark Minerals, Lithium Carbonate, Technical Grade, 99%, EXW China, RMD/tonne
- Benchmark Minerals, Lithium Hydroxide, 55%, FOB North America, USD/tonne
- Benchmark Minerals, Lithium Hydroxide, 56.5%, CIF Asia, USD/tonne
- Benchmark Minerals, Lithium Hydroxide, 55%, CIF Europe, USD/tonne
- Benchmark Minerals, Lithium Hydroxide, 56.5%, EXW China, RMB/tonne
- Benchmark Minerals, Spodumene Concentrate, 6%, FOB Australia
In July Benchmark Intelligence published an update on lithium prices titled
‘Lithium’s price paradox’. Current prices are a paradox because lithium
investors are making decisions based on short-term supply versus
long-term market fundamentals.
Indeed there has been an influx of
new supply entering the market. Last year four hard-rock (spodumene)
operations in Australia started production. The number of active lithium
mines in Australia grew from one in 2016 to nine by year-end 2018.
A total of five new lithium conversion
plants (plants that convert lithium carbonate to lithium hydroxide) have
come into production and another three have expanded their output to
meet market demand.
What is promised in not always delivered
Past success however is not necessarily
indicative of the future. We know that between 2012 and 2016, major
lithium miners planned to produce an extra 200,000 tonnes of new supply.
But when 2016 rolled around, under 50,000 new tonnes came online, due
to technical problems.
According to Benchmark’s research, only
three plants in China have reached production and full capacity. Beyond
the Tier 1 producers shown in green in the table below, just two –
General Lithium (16,000t) and Jiangte Motor (25,000t) – managed to meet
production targets of 41,500t. That means only 87,000t of new Chinese
capacity has hit the market since 2016, of a planned 481,500t:
The false narrative which emerged from
these expansions and spilled over into 2019 was that the industry was
awash with battery-grade lithium chemicals, sufficient to support rapid
electrification over coming years.
Benchmark notes more major expansions
outside China are planned this year but the timelines for completion are
vague and delays are expected; thus the myth of over-supply in the face
of exponentially high future demand for lithium. The research firm
predicts supply would have to increase at a compound annual growth rate
(CAGR) of 19% over the next six years to meet 2025 demand. From 2015 to
2018 it grew at just 11%:
While the supply response has addressed
the relatively minor growth of today, it is still far from meeting the
needs of tomorrow’s EV expansions.
Spectators that flocked to the market in
2016 on the promise of an EV super-cycle have left before the warm up,
let alone the main event.
While a downturn in prices has reflected
a necessary correction towards near-term market fundamentals, it fails
to represent the increasing possibility of another major deficit in the
market by the early-2020s, creating a deceptive narrative in both share
prices and surrounding markets.
Another important point is that, despite the
hundreds of thousands of tonnes more lithium chemical production
capacity, only a small percentage will make it into lithium-ion
batteries. Why?
Lithium carbonate contained in brines must
have contaminants removed before it can be considered battery-grade
quality; the process of removing impurities can be expensive.
Technical-grade lithium used in applications
other than for EV batteries such as glass and ceramics, is cheaper than
battery-grade material, but it has to have low concentrations of iron
to be upgraded. There may also be teething problems at new operations.
Says Benchmark:
As with any new lithium chemical
production, only a proportion of this material will likely be sold into
the battery sector from the outset. Even leading producers have problems
meeting specs in the initial stages of production.
Both lithium carbonate and hydroxide can be
used in the EV battery cathode. Lithium for the cathode and electrolyte
materials is produced from lithium carbonate. In brine deposits, the
lithium chloride is concentrated by evaporating lithium-rich brines in
shallow pools from 12 to 18 months. It is then treated with sodium
carbonate (soda ash) to precipitate out the lithium carbonate.
Lithium carbonate can also be produced from clay deposits and spodumene, a silicate of lithium and aluminum.
All lithium batteries contain some form of
lithium in the cathode and electrolyte materials. The battery anode is
generally graphite-based, containing no lithium.
Lithium carbonate derived from brine operations can be used directly to make lithium-ion batteries, but a hard-rock, spodumene concentrate needs to be further refined before it can be used in batteries, adding costs and complexity.
Despite being more expensive lithium
hydroxide is becoming more popular as a battery feedstock because it is
said to produce cathode material more efficiently and is necessary in
certain cathode combinations such as nickel-cobalt-aluminum (NCA) oxide
batteries and nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) oxide batteries.
About 75% of the 65,000 tonnes of lithium chemical production expected to come online this year is targeting lithium hydroxide.
While brine operations that suck up the
lithium in a salt-water solution and then evaporate it in large ponds
have historically been cheaper than hard-rock spodumene operations like
Greenbushes in Australia, that is beginning to change. A higher royalty
structure in Chile and a plant’s ability to make lithium hydroxide
directly from spodumene are two factors challenging this assumption.
But according to Benchmark, the case for
lithium hydroxide being the more competitive lithium-ion battery
feedstock is predicated on the battery market adopting high-nickel,
hydroxide-dependent cathode chemistries†(a proposition that looks
increasingly unlikely in the near-term) and secondly, that all spodumene
producers are integrated lithium chemical suppliers. So far none of the new lithium assets are owned by chemical converter companies:
The question in the lithium market is
no longer whether spodumene or brine resources will be developed – both
are needed to take us anywhere near the growth estimates of the next 2-3
years. The new questions is what other channels of supply will be
developed to take us close to the demand forecasts for 2025 and beyond.
Indeed if these new spodumene mines fail to
meet production costs, they will either cut output or close, which would
tighten the lithium market even further than expected. Already we are
seeing some spodumene producers in Australia balk at the prices they are
currently receiving, preferring to stockpile material instead.
Reuters reports, Converters
of hard rock lithium into battery chemicals in China were holding
around four months’ worth of stocks, or double usual levels… This has
slowed sales from overseas suppliers. Galaxy sold 44,630 tonnes in the
first half of 2019, against more than 90,000 tonnes a year earlier, at
an average price of $584, down from $940 a year ago.
If Australia’s spodumene producers are
priced out of the market, where would the lithium come from to meet
surging market demand?
The way things are going, it’s not likely to
be the United States. Despite having several properties at the
development stage, no new lithium mine has entered production on US soil
for over 50 years. The only producing mine is Albemarle’s Silver Peak
in Nevada – which has been going since the 1960s and is rumored to have
falling lithium brine concentrations.
China resource lock-up
We know from previous articles that China has been extremely active in acquiring ownership or part-ownership of foreign lithium mines and inking offtake agreements.
By 2025, the Chinese government wants EVs to represent 20% of all cars sold.
By comparison, the US sold 361,307 EVs in 2018, just under a third of China’s volume.
China of course, has also locked up the rare earths market and is the primary player in a number of critical mineral markets including cobalt, graphite, manganese and vanadium.
For years the United States and Canada
didn’t bother to explore for these minerals and build mines.
Globalization brought with it the mentality that all countries are free
traders, and friends. Dirty mining and processing? NIMBY. Let China do
it, let the DRC do it, let whoever do it.
China recognized opportunity knocking and
answered the door, seizing control of almost all REE processing and
magnet manufacturing, in the space of about 10 years.
Earlier this year, as part of its trade war strategy, China raised the prospect of restricting exports of these commodities, that are critical to America’s defense, energy electronics and auto sectors.
Over half of the world’s cobalt – a key ingredient of electric vehicle batteries –
is mined as a by-product of copper production in the Democratic
Republic of Congo (DRC). In a $9 billion joint venture with the DRC
government, China got the rights to the vast copper and cobalt resources
of the North Kivu in exchange for providing $6 billion worth of
infrastructure including roads, dams, hospitals, schools and railway
links.
China controls about 85% of global cobalt
supply, including an offtake agreement with Glencore, the largest
producer of the mineral, to sell cobalt hydroxide to Chinese chemicals
firm GEM. China Molybdenum is the largest shareholder in the major DRC
copper-cobalt mine Tenke Fungurume, which supplies cobalt to the Kokkola
refinery in Finland. China imports 98% of its cobalt from the DRC and
produces around half of the world’s refined cobalt.
In 2018 the United States produced just 500
tons of cobalt compared to 90,000t mined in the DRC. The US did not
produce any vanadium either; the top three producers of the steel
additive are, in order, China, Russia and South Africa.
As Quartz notes,
in order to maintain its dominance in the EV market, Chinese
manufacturers need a lot of cheap lithium. That explains why its largest
lithium miner, Tianqi Lithium, owns 51% of Australia’s Greenbushes
spodumene mine – the world’s dominant hard-rock lithium mine. And why
China bid for, and got, a 23.7% stake in Chilean state lithium miner SQM, the second largest in the world, for $4.1 billion.
China produces roughly two-thirds of the world’s lithium-ion batteries and controls most of its processing facilities.
Russia goes after lithium
This week the Uranium One Group, a
subsidiary of Rosatom, Russia’s state-owned nuclear company, signed a
deal with Wealth Minerals (TSX-V:WML) which has a lithium property in
northern Chile. The Vancouver-based junior sold 51% of its Atacama
lithium project to U1G.
It’s unclear what Uranium One – the same
company at the center of a scandal involving the Clintons – plans to do
with the 42,600-hectare property. WML would only say it’s interested in
partnering with U1G to “accelerate the development of lithium projects
by using modern technology and moving away from outdated solar
evaporation to a more efficient and environmentally friendly sorption
technology,†the company’s president, Tim McCutcheon, remarked in Monday’s news release.
We do know that Russia is paying more
attention to electric vehicles, despite petroleum being its number one
export by far. According to the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade,
EV sales in the largest cities particularly Moscow and St. Petersburg,
grew 150% between 2017 and 2018, despite a 40% price increase.
The most popular model is the Nissan Leaf,
accounting for some 40% of all sales in 2018, followed by the
Mitsubishi i-MiEV and the Tesla Model S. Minister of Energy Alexander
Novak reportedly said that EVs should represent 8-10% of Russia’s total
car fleet by 2025- which would be a huge increase from the 10,000-11,000
EVs estimated to be on Russian roads at the end of 2018, Automotive Fleet reported earlier this year.
It’s certainly curious, if not alarming,
that Russia is already locking up lithium supplies, even though its EV
penetration rate is paltry compared to the top electric vehicle use
countries. Canada for example has about eight times more.
We can’t help but notice Uranium One is
doing the same thing with lithium, that it has done with uranium – be
the Russian government’s Trojan horse in dominating the world’s uranium supply.
Is it possible that Russia wants to be a
price-setter of lithium too, which even in oil and gas-soaked Russia is
likely to be a major new growth industry? It’s easy to see offtakes
developing between Russia and South American lithium brines, or maybe
Russia partnering with Chinese companies as they have done in the energy
sphere, as the country ramps up production of lithium batteries and
electric vehicles.
A run through the latest uranium mine
closures reveals the strong likelihood that Russia, through its
Kazakhstan proxy, aims to seek and destroy any threats to its dominance.
Besides Cameco’s mine shutdowns and US uranium production controlled by
Americans reduced to almost nil, other casualties of low U prices and
high-cost mining include French state-owned nuclear juggernaut Areva.
West Africa-focused Areva went bankrupt and had to be restructured into a
new company, Orano.
Australia’s Paladin Energy placed its Langer
Heinrich mine in Namibia on care and maintenance in May 2018, following
the mothballing of its Kayelekera mine in Malawi.
Rio Tinto’s Rossing uranium mine in Namibia
is an example of a high-cost mine that was carved up by the Russians and
handed over to the Chinese. The world’s longest-running open-pit
uranium mine, opened in 1976, produced the most uranium of any mine.
However, with production costs over $70 per pound, and the uranium price
still limping along at around $20/lb, it was only a matter of time
before too much red ink had spilled; in November 2018, Rio agreed to
sell its stake in Rossing to China National Uranium Corp.
With their low-cost production and
state-owned enterprises doing the mining and enriching, Russia,
Kazakhstan, and upcoming China can easily out-compete the private
uranium industry.
For example Uranium One, the Canadian
company that was swallowed up in 2013 by ARMZ, a subsidiary of Rosatom,
currently mines uranium in Kazakhstan, the world’s leading
uranium-producing country, at an average cash cost of $8 a pound.
In-situ mines operated by Uranium One and Kazatomprom dominated the
first two quartiles of uranium-mining costs in 2018.
In contrast Cameco, the third-biggest
uranium miner behind Kazakh
state-owned Kazatomprom and Orano (formerly Areva), reports its only
mine left after four closures, Cigar Lake, will be mined at $15-16/lb
over the remainder of its life.
Uranium One is vitally important not only to Kazakhstan’s uranium production, but Russia’s.
As a wholly-owned subsidiary of Rosatom, the
company is responsible for Rosatom’s entire uranium production outside
of Russia. That makes it the world’s fourth largest uranium producer.
Uranium One has part-ownership of six producing uranium mines in
Kazakhstan, the Willow Creek mine in Wyoming, and a 13.9% interest in a
uranium development project in Tanzania.
Russia and Kazakhstan have signed several nuclear cooperation agreements over the past decade or so.
The former Soviet satellite nation and
Russia currently account for over a third of US imported uranium,
effectively setting the price of the nuclear fuel.
US mine to battery to EV supply chain
The International Energy Agency is
predicting 24% growth in EVs every year until 2030. The global fleet is
expected to triple by 2020, from 3.7 million in 2017 to 13 million in
2020, according to the IEA.
Bloomberg forecasts there will be a 54-fold
increase in EVs between 2017 and 2040, when global light-duty EV sales
are expected to hit 60 million; there are currently about 4 million EVs
in the world.
Globally, battery makers and automobile
manufacturers are scrambling to ensure they have enough supply of the
silvery-white metal.
A Reuters analysis shows that automakers are planning on spending a combined $300 billion on electrification in the next decade.
Volkswagen has said it will invest $800 million to construct a new electric vehicle – likely an SUV – at its plant in Chattanooga plant, starting in 2022. For more read Volkswagen to drag Tesla, making EVs in Tennessee.
Opened in 2016, Tesla’s Gigafactory in Nevada is a going concern.
Every day 1,000 cars sets are trucked from the Gigafactory to an
assembly plant in Fremont, California. The three-storey structure, the
size of a dozen football fields, has 13,000 people working for Tesla and
its Japanese battery partner, Panasonic.
The company’s Model 3 was the best-selling electric vehicle in the US during
the first half of 2019. InsideEVs claims Tesla sold 67,650 Model 3s
through June, seven times the next best-selling electric vehicle,
Tesla’s Model X SUV. The Chevy Bolt and Nissan Leaf were also among the
top five best sellers.
GM is planning to sell its first EV this year, a 2020 Cadillac SUV, built in Spring Hill, Tennessee, in a move designed to challenge Tesla.
In 2017, coinciding with its 20th anniversary, Mercedez-Benz announced plans to set up an electric car production facility and battery plant at
its existing Tuscaloosa, Alabama plant. The $1-billion expansion will
include a new battery factory near the production site, with the goal of
providing batteries for a future electric SUV under the brand EQ. Six
sites are planned to produce Mercedes’ EQ electric-vehicle family
models, along with a network of eight battery plants.
Meanwhile more battery factories are being built, driven by the demand for lithium ion batteries which is forecast to grow at a CAGR of over 13% by 2023.
There are 68 lithium-ion battery
mega-factories already in the planning or construction stage. The first
phase of Tesla’s Chinese Gigafactory is reportedly almost complete; plans are also in the works for a Gigafactory in Europe.
Korean company SK Innovation has said it will invest US$1.6 billion in the first electric vehicle battery plant in the United States, and is considering plowing an additional $5 billion into the project, planned for Jackson County, Georgia.
All of this explosive growth in battery
plants and EVs will mean an unprecedented demand for the metals that go
into them. This includes lithium, cobalt, rare earths, graphite, nickel
and copper. Lithium for example is expected to see a 29X increase in
demand according to Bloomberg.
How will the United States obtain enough lithium for the electric-vehicle storm of demand that is brewing?
The US only produces 1% of global lithium
supply and 7% of refined lithium chemicals, versus China’s 51%. The
country is about 70% dependent on imported lithium.
To lessen US lithium dependency will require the building of a mine to battery to EV supply chain in North America.
The first step is to develop new North American lithium mines.
Lithium products from Albemarle’s Silver
Peak brine operation in Nevada are sent to its processing plant in North
Carolina. This material is then loaded on ships and sent to Chinese
battery manufacturers, which sell the batteries to automakers.
We don’t know how much lithium hydroxide
Albemarle exports from Kings Mountain (the company does not disclose the
amount to the USGS in tabulating global production statistics), but we
do not think it is significant in global terms. According to Visual Capitalist,
Silver Peak only produces 1,000 tonnes per year of lithium hydroxide,
within a current lithium market of roughly 280,000 tonnes per annum of
lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE), a term that encompasses both lithium
hydroxide and carbonate used in EV batteries.
Recently, oil-field services giant Schlumberger inked an earn-in agreement with Pure Energy Minerals that
could see Schlumberger – normally associated with oil and gas
operations – own a lithium brine project in Nevada. The company and its
subsidiaries have three years to acquire 100% ownership in return for
constructing a pilot plant for processing lithium brine.
Lithium Americas (TSX-V:LAC) is advancing
its Thacker Pass lithium project in Humboldt County, Nevada, about 100
km northwest of Winnemucca. In 2018 LAC completed a PFS that envisions
an open-pit mine that would produce 60,000 tonnes per annum of lithium
carbonate, for 46 years. The two-phase project, targeted for 2022, would
start with 30,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) then ramp up to 60,000 tpa.
The company recently said it has completed a Plan of Operation for
submission to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), secured two partners
for mining engineering, and started a definitive feasibility study
(DFS).
Juniors: the next wave
Junior miners that have projects anywhere
close to production between now and 2040 are bound to do well in the
current lithium market, which as mentioned, is facing long-term supply
shortages, despite what you read about a glut.
Remember, supply would have to increase at a CAGR of 19% over the next six years to meet 2025 demand.
Albemarle’s Silver Peak mine is the only
producing lithium mine in the US, but there are other properties that
could become the next big producer. The old adage, “To find a mine look
around a mine†applies here. Below are five companies with US-focused
lithium projects under development. All are in Tesla’s home state
Nevada.
Ioneer (ASX:INR). Ioneer’s Rhyolite
Ridge project is a shallow lithium-boron deposit located 25 kilometers
from Albemarle’s Silver Peak mine. The company plans to leach lithium
and boron from the host rock using dilute sulfuric acid. The project
currently has a mineral resource of 4.1 million tonnes lithium carbonate
and 10.9Mt of boric acid. With the resource compiled from an estimated
20% of two prospective basins, Ioneer believes it can expand the
resource through further drilling. A prefeasibility study (PFS) was
completed in October 2018.
Cypress Development Corp (TSX-V:CYP). Cypress’
Clayton Valley Lithium Project, next to Albemarle’s Silver Peak lithium
mine, hosts a non-hectorite claystone indicated resource of 3.835
million tonnes LCE and an inferred resource of 5.126 million tonnes LCE.
A 2018 PEA showed a net present value of $1.45 billion at an 8%
discount rate, yielding an internal rate of return (after tax) of 32.7%.
Payback is just under three years. Cypress has successfully produced
lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide that can be marketed to end
users, like electric vehicle battery manufacturers. Metallurgical
testing shows 83% lithium recovery. A Pre-feasibility Study (PFS) is
expected in October 2019.
Noram Ventures (TSX-V:NRM). The
perimeter of Noram’s claims are located within two kilometers of
Albemarle lithium brine operations. A technical report on the Zeus claim
block was updated earlier this year, the result of three phases of
drilling encompassing 60 drill holes. The new report identified an
inferred mineral resource of 1.5 million tonnes of lithium carbonate
equivalent (LCE).
Nevada Energy Metals (TSX-V:BFF). Nevada
Energy Metals acquired its BFF-1 lithium project based on descriptions
of geological modeling and historical drill results. The 2008 report
concluded that shallow thermal-gradient drilling and exploration by
previous operators demonstrated that this particular part of the Clayton
Valley contained the valley’s highest subsurface temperatures. The
company has two other lithium properties in Nevada, Teels Marsh West
located 77 km northwest of the Silver Peak mine, and Black Rock Desert,
which it optioned to LiCo Energy Metals in 2016.
LiCo Energy Metals (TSX-V:LIC). LiCo Energy
Metals is advancing the Black Rock Desert project it acquired from
Nevada Energy Metals. Under the option agreement, LIC can earn a 70%
interest in the project, and a 3% net smelter return royalty, by
spending $1,250,000 in exploration within three years. A soil sampling
program of 88 samples returned 73 samples containing over 100 ppm
lithium, with maximum values up to 520 ppm Li.
Conclusion
This brief survey of lithium juniors
operating in the United States shows there is tons of potential for
building the foundation of a true mine to battery supply chain right
here in North America. Doing so would put an end to US import dependence
on foreign suppliers of lithium, needed to serve the burgeoning
electric vehicle industry; the shift that occurred in the US oil
industry, from net importer to net exporter, is analogous to what could,
and should, happen with lithium.
The only way to break this dependence is to
develop lithium mines in the US. And that spells opportunity for ahead
of the herd investors.
Consider – Bacanora Minerals Sonora clay
lithium project in Mexico attracted a buy-in from
China’s Ganfeng Lithium. A payment of £21,963,740 from Ganfeng in
exchange for a 29.99% equity interest and a 22.5% joint venture (JV)
investment, helped boost Bacanora’s share price by over 50% this year.
Battery and EV manufacturers in the United
States need to get out in front of the looming lithium supply shortage.
Buy secure mine supply now or pay the pipers, Russia and China, later.
Richard (Rick) Mills https://aheadoftheherd.com/Newsletter/2019/Building-Americas-mine-to-battery-to-EV-supply-chain
