@Egeria"
Agree the iron ore market is much more mature and far larger than lithium will ever be, they are incomparable. Barriers to entry downstream in lithium are far more significant".
They are both raw material commodities. If you agree with what happened to iron ore will happen to lithium, it's only the maturity level of market then there nothing to talk, we agree on everything.
It's only a matter of time.
And what I explained on the opening post in this thread was the explanation to that issue; the lithium-battery market has now got into the maturity state. I explained the EV sales, 50% penetration rate 5 years later, etc... It's not a long term though.
Otherwise we all know what the Chinese did so far, making loss for 20% in self production then manipulate the 80% overseas supply, etc. Exactly the same what they did in iron market but failed.
It's also the Chinese traders and plants are even competing with itself, there is not much competition overseas, etc.. These are correct.
But what I explained is the strategic view. It's all changing rapidly now. You can see RIO is getting ready NOW for that long term, because 5 years is not a long term for big corporations.
When I was in coal seam gas stocks in 2008-2009, there was 4 LNG groups competing with each other for QLD's gas assets (very big ones). Around $20b invested by them at that time. Do you know the first gas production date planned for all of them?
it was 2017. (for exporting Japan, Korea and China) So they were fighting for a product which was going to be sold 9 years later.
Lithium is much critical.
So the west will invest hard in this lithium business.
(20min delay)