It is hard to know what Nemaska's plans are now that they are private, however I think we may be finding more out via Livent who now holds a % of Nemaska. Prior to the debacle they had planned on having excess hydroxide capacity at the plant and I am going to assume this will still be true. Piedmont for sure is planning on having excess capacity and have already created an off-take agreement with Sayona, and will still have excess capacity.
Tesla may want a bidding war but there are not enough players to have that war. The very worst thing that Tesla could do would be to kill a supplier, this would severely hinder their ability to produce cars. They already have had to put their Semi plans on hold because there is not enough locally source lithium, I don't think they will play hard ball with their supply chain, at least not at this juncture of the game.
The final location for spodumene conversion would be NAL which could be the quickest of all the hydroxide chemicals plants to come online, there is a lot of conjecture about what can be done at NAL, but until the plant is re-opened and the new owners take over we probably won't know for sure if there will be excess capacity at that location. My guess is that the new owners would attempt to provide additional capacity in their buildout plans but that is just a guess.
GXY Price at posting:
$3.21 Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
