short and distort, page-83

Hey @Wary 1, I thought we were all getting shoo'ed away by grumpy old Franky from down the road.

Little does he know I was up bright and early for the morning service, and like to spend the rest of my day celebrating my freedom by doing whatever I damn well please!

Hmmmm you ask a difficult question...

Re: Galaxy Resources & Lepidico
"If you had to choose between one or the other, which would you choose?"

It's like trying to choose which is your favourite child, and I am sure that @maxi1981 would tell you that Galaxy is mine, but that doesn't mean that Lepidico isn't great either. Over time it's my feeling that both of these companies will compliment each other nicely. Whether it is by being two seperate companies or the perhaps inevitable merge that is speculated. If you go over to the Lepidico forum they would need to be heavily convinced that a merge brings the best value.

The Lepidico tech is exciting as @Darkstone pointed out in his post along with the announcements I pointed out of theirs (LPD)

That is...

...the ability to turn rubbish tailings into something of great value for little cash outlay. (Low cost of production)

As you know I am still wondering what the improvments implemented underu the YOP can do and whilst it is represented as being tied to improving the quality, it is also about being efficient and preventing waste as much as removing it.

If they can seperate a small pile of feedstock that can be processed even to a mere 1500 to 3000 tonnes per annum of lithium chemicals that's a great start. Though if they do do it, perhaps they will aim higher. We already know that Ravensthorpe has sulphuric acid generators that belong to First Quantum sitting in maintenance.

IMO Lepidico will be the next Australian lithium company to be producing in meaningful commerical quantities lithium chemicals, though one condition I'll place upon that is the direct extraction Galaxy are working with at Sal De Vida. Other than that, I don't see any other Aussie company beating them too it.

What interests me even more in Lepidico and I know that the Lepidico crew was hoping it would happen....... is expanding from not just lithium carbonate but also adding a lithium hydroxide circuit which they announced in Feb and are now adding to the pilot plant in Perth.

I guess you can kinda tell the amount of respect I have for that particular company, and pleased that Galaxy are their number 1 share holder at ~12%

As the wise Old El Peso girl once said...

"Why don't we have both?"



I have been reading an article this morning... (hope that's cool with you Frank? )

The article is on the oilprice.com website and it is titled

Is This A Gamechanger For The Lithium Industry?

You can click on that title and it will take you to the article. They are trying to advertise some companies, but overall I found the discussion of demand worthwhile highlighting.

Let’s take a look at key demand drivers for lithium.

First, there’s electric vehicles (EV). According to Argus Media, lithium ion batteries in EVs have increased from 10 GWh to 70 GWh in only a decade, with estimates placing the market to reach 223 GWh by 2025, an increase of 300x from current levels.

EVs have been taking off in the United States, with sales increasing by 81% in 2018, though a more modest increase is expected in 2019. EVs take up 2.4% of total vehicles in the United States.



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Where demand is really soaring is in China. More than 2 million EVs will be sold this year, up from 1.1 million last year. It’s part of the government’s plan to have 50% market share for EVs by 2025.

Consumers in Europe are also turning towards EVs, which now make up considerable portions of total vehicle fleets in Norway, Holland and France. EV sales jumped 67% in Europe, led by affordable EV models from Renault and Nissan.

Fastmarket predicts EV market penetration of 15% by 2025, up from only 2% currently. But with such ambitious plans in place in China, one of the world’s most important car markets, that figure could be on the conservative side.

According to Simon Moores of Benchmark Minerals, EVs and an increase in battery storage demand “has sparked a wave of lithium ion battery mega factories,” such as Tesla’s famous Gigafactory. Currently, 70 lithium-ion battery “mega” factories are under construction, up from only 17 in October 2017.

Elon Musk wants 20 gigafactories producing lithium batteries for Tesla EVs by the next decade. Benchmark thinks new factories will be using up 534,000 tons in new demand (on top of current demand of 200,000 tons) by 2028.

That’s the other demand side factor: as the energy storage sector grows, demand for lithium-ion batteries will grow by leaps and bounds. By one estimate, the market could reach $92 billion by 2024, with a CAGR of 16%. The market was worth $21.6 billion in 2018.

A slightly more conservative estimate has the market reaching $40 billion by 2025, but that’s still nearly 100% in growth in less than a decade. Another estimate is $60 billion by 2024. Due to declining prices, Bloomberg raised its forecast for lithium ion batteries due to lower than expected prices.

The best estimate is from Global Market Insights, which predicts energy storage and automotive lithium ion battery demand to double by 2024.



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The expectation from GMI is that the bulk of new battery production will come from China, where batteries have a large internal market.

Link