Lithium Prices Have Rolled Back 78 Percent From Peak Due to Excess Market Supply

This is like double news. It's good for battery prices going forward near term as they saying prices would not rebound until 2028. However, it's killing equity values so the trading. Reduced demand in Asia from oversupply is the primary driver. May be a good time to do something in the commodities sector. With this kind of dip I would comfortably buy up shares or trades or however Lithium is traded on Wall Street.

Zerohedge
The price of battery-grade lithium carbonate has crashed in the last 12 months. This downward pressure is attributed to oversupplied markets in Asia, primarily because the global adoption rate of electric vehicles has notably slowed amid high interest rates.

Since November 2022, the average price of battery-grade lithium carbonate in China plunged from $84,500 per metric ton to $18,630, or about a 78% decline.

According to forecasts from industry consultancy Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, the global lithium market won't rebalance and return to a deficit until 2028.

General Motors, Honda, LG Energy Solution, and other auto and battery manufacturers have dialed back EV expansion plans in recent months, mainly because rising interest rates are curbing demand. This has created a global supply glut for the battery metal.

BloombergNEF's Allan Ray Restauro said, "With lithium supply growing more next year, we are likely going to see prices falling further, adding, "On the demand side, some regional differences on EV sales have been dragging sentiment down around the industry."

The world's second-largest lithium producer, Chilean miner SQM, recently blamed the plunge in lithium prices on excess inventory, especially in Asia.

Plunging prices come as the 'green' energy bubble is melting down, with the world's largest offshore wind farm developer, Orsted A/S, abandoning US projects, and solar stocks crashing on sliding demand.

That should be a good buy signal for a long option right??

a reply to: worldstarcountry

With the war starting in the Middle East what is the right move to make?

a reply to: worldstarcountry

I think it’s more indicative that there was a EV bubble. Whether or not we’re seeing the full pop is to be determined.

Going long on lithium probably isn’t a bad play if you keep an eye on it… But the market reacted for a reason. Lithium isn’t a viable long term option. It’s incredibly nuanced how green it is, and I won’t die on a hill to say that it is more ethical in an environmental context, only that it does help provide energy security by diversifying.

Personally, I’d keep an eye on sensible fuel cell technologies. You can still capture energy that would have likely gone to ground to create things like hydrogen and store energy that would have otherwise been wasted. You can scale said technology with energy surplus from nuclear if people can get their heads out their ass. That said, we still have to figure out membranes to effectively hold hydrogen, so there’s a reason it’s not viable yet.


There’s always money to be made in new technologies, but you have to be nimble as an investor. People act as if it was no brainer on the technologies that have prevailed. But hindsight is always easier, and most of the people who “saw it coming” don’t have realized profits to support such claims.

My opinion is take your money out of oil and gas because there is an impending war in the Middle East and you will lose.

a reply to: quintessentone

Well it does not mean these things will stop being traded after the war. Business does not stop. Could be some fast money to be had on the futures game??
a reply to: CriticalStinker

Well the thing is people are not going to be tossing their air pods, speakers, gaming handles, tablets, power tools, fans, phones and any number of consumer gadgets out the window overnight. It seems to me more volume goes to that than EV batteries for cars. A bubble pop in that niche industry feels entirely plausible. But there are still a dozen lithium powered things in the home so don't go abandoning it just yet. Homeless people are carrying them around too.

But hey maybe Tesla batteries will drop to like 1500-2000 cheaper per unit over the next five years??

a reply to: worldstarcountry

Hehe here is a story from late August of this year 2023 from cnbc saying there will be a lithium shortage.

www.cnbc.com...

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. Others, however, see a longer time frame before that shortfall hits.

BMI, a Fitch Solutions research unit, was among those that predict a lithium supply deficit by 2025. In a recently published report, BMI largely attributed the deficit to China’s lithium demand exceeding that of its supply.

“We expect an average of 20.4% year-on-year annual growth for China’s lithium demand for EVs alone over 2023-2032,” the report stated. 

In contrast, China’s lithium supply will only grow 6% over the same period, BMI said, adding that rate cannot satiate even one third of forecasted demand.

Here's Reuters from January 2022

www.reuters.com...

Lithium is in hot demand due to rapidly growing production of electric vehicles that use lithium-ion batteries, but there is a global supply shortage of the metal, with western countries racing to bring on new mines to compete with China.

The Serbian government on Thursday cancelled licenses for a major lithium project owned by Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto Plc (RIO.L)(RIO.AX), which industry experts said is likely to prolong the supply shortage to mid-decade.

Here are more links from various stories from 2021, 2022, and just a few months ago in 2023 talking about the lithium shortage predictions

www.instituteforenergyresearch.org...

time.com...

www.forbes.com...

www.nytimes.com...

fortune.com...

apnews.com...


And finally here's the World Economic Forum in July 2022. What I'm reading into all of these is that it was assumed the masters of the world would force us all to buy EVs and get rid of fossil fueled vehicles. That seems to not be panning out. I'm sure Klaus is very disappointed.

www.weforum.org...

Global EV purchases jumped to 6.6 million in 2021 from 3 million a year earlier, meaning that EVs made up 9% of the market, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). They accounted for all the growth in worldwide car sales, which rose to 66.7 million last year, up from 63.8 million in 2020. This implies that non-EV sales fell by 700,000.

Sales of petrol and diesel cars are expected to slide quickly in this decade. 

Sales of petrol and diesel cars are projected to slide even more quickly in the coming decade, as more countries pledge to phase them out. At last year’s COP26 climate talks, 30 governments said they would stop sales of new petrol and diesel models by 2040.

a reply to: worldstarcountry

That should be a good buy signal for a long option right??

Explanation: NOPE! ...

Here is why ...

Will Hemp Make EV Batteries Better?

Hemp For Victory! Researchers Make Better, Cheaper Batteries From Plant Waste

Hemp could make EV batteries better. Here’s how.

The company began its research right after the 2018 Farm Bill was passed. It worked with David Mitlin, a professor at New York’s Clarkson University and an expert in electrochemistry — the study of energy storage devices like batteries. Mitlin claimed in 2019 that the batteries he created for Alternet Systems store 200% more energy than gold-standard graphene batteries. That makes these batteries more than just batteries. They are supercapacitors.

Personal Disclosure: Li-ion Batteries have seen their day in the sun and its over ok!

Hemp batteries are the way of the future!

I hope this information helps!

I myself think we're getting to the peak of the Lithium battery insanity. And the problems with battery powered cars are going to start rolling them back.

Charging a EV costs $17 a gallon.

Hybrids make much more sense. The US simply doesn't have the infrastructure to support many more EVs. And diesel powered recharging stations sort of defeat the purpose of buying the EVs in the first place right? All things considered EVs are a evolutionary dead end. And should have remained a niche product.

And one last thing. Recycling a EV is a dirty nasty process. And we're nowhere near peak recycling on old EVs yet.

Let's go Brandon!

Lithium mining is hazardous to the environment and to humans and the morons that thought this method of "green" energy were good, are actually starting to pay attention.

So I don't think it is long for life, as a favorite.

a reply to: worldstarcountry

Well the thing is people are not going to be tossing their air pods, speakers, gaming handles, tablets, power tools, fans, phones and any number of consumer gadgets out the window overnight.

Yea, that’s a really good point. And the only way that gets screwed is solid state batteries.

They have figured out how to cost effectively remove Lithium from seawater. The shortage is probably land based lithium deposits, but as anyone knows there is plenty of seawater, and since the ocean contains more than five thousand times the amount of lithium than is on land, any future shortage of Lithium is probably old news.

Scientist have cost-effectively harvested Lithium from Seawater

a reply to: worldstarcountry

I sure don't know much with regard to trading and making money, but with this news, the imidiate slow down in EV's and this tidbit:
www.eni.com...

Devens, Massachusetts, 20 November 2023 – The United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John Kerry, has visited today Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) corporate headquarters in Devens, Massachusetts, near Boston, together with CFS CEO, Bob Mumgaard and Eni CEO, Claudio Descalzi.

CFS, a spin-out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), is working to bring fusion power plants to market. Eni, a significant investor, and collaborator has played a key role in supporting CFS’s rapid growth since founding in 2018. CFS is currently constructing SPARC, projected to become the world's first magnetic confinement system to demonstrate scientific energy gain. SPARC will pave the way for ARC – envisioned to be the first commercial power plant capable of feeding fusion electricity into the grid, which is projected to be operational in the early 2030s.

It's almost as if there is something new on the horizon, and they were trying to sell all the flintstone cars before they rolled out the new models. Super over simplification, but my take on this from the cheap seats.

originally posted by: worldstarcountry

But hey maybe Tesla batteries will drop to like 1500-2000 cheaper per unit over the next five years??

So I'm in the drone business and we are talking gas engines, lithium batteries, hydrogen fuel cells etc., and a buddy in the battery side of things told me to not buy EV for about 5 years as lithium solid-state batteries are right around the corner. We are talking 500 miles on a charge and 15 mins to get 80% with 10,000 recharging before needing to be replaced. The weight is about 60% of the current ones.

There is also Sodium-ion that is growing in technology. Right now about 150 miles on a 15-minute charge, but that will keep getting better. The best part is salt is 300 bucks per ton while lithium is 80,000 bucks per ton.

a reply to: worldstarcountry

I don't think they are that far away from supplanting the current Ion Lithium batteries and technology that power just about anything and everything mobile.

With something somewhat less violent and reactive when exposed to our atmosphere, which may also account for or help explain the market price.

realizing the shelf life drain and recalling it to recycle it back into a new whatever is not a bad thing.

I only got about 85 miles out of a custom ebike using a 100Mah about 23 miles per cycle with light pedaling; Before it wouldn't charge anymore it just shows green on the charger as if it's charged even though depleted... Which is weird because less than that typically gets more charges but less distance.

Having about 7 miles either way to a grocery can get annoying when it's just biking or mopedding it... It's a huge money saving though as moped is over 90 miles per gallon and less than 50 a year insurance. As well as I'm not in the mood to ride or pedal 7 miles so mail ordered tobacco and coffee are enough.

a reply to: OmegaLogos
maybe ten or fifteen years down the road man, but all the manufacturers are not just going to cut their supply chains in lithium production overnight. And again I mentioned that while lithium may have seen its day in automobiles, pretty sure more than half the market consumption is in household consumer gadgets. Air pods and beats headphones arent exactly issueing press releases about changing out of lithium for wireless speakers and such.

A breakthrough in battery storage in one niche industry does not end an entire industry overnight.

a reply to: Shoshanna
I never bought into that hype. Knowing how much Lithium is sitting under Afghanistan and South America I just figured they were trying to pump share prices at the time.
a reply to: staroftheworld
WTF!? I thought I ditched that login.