Thought I'd do a bit of statement 'data mining' and join some...

Thought I'd do a bit of statement 'data mining' and join some dots ........
Apologies in advance if the formatting drops out spaces between words. It looks fine in preview.

Macquarie is nowbullish on Lithium.

Heightenedconcern about the perceived limited additionalsupply of high quality HPA from established producers. (e.g. SumitomoChemicals and Nippon Light Metal. Both supply HPA to LG Chemicals)

Other major lithium-ionbattery producers in South Korea include SKInnovation and Samsung SDI, Samsungis also a major user of HPA for its coated separators.

W-Scope hasforecast a further increase in expected sales revenue that is 50% above its2019 guidance primarily due to HPA use. Nearly 60% of W-Scope’s sales are to South Korea. W-Scopehas a ~10% share of the global battery separator sheet market.

Volkswagen:

• SeesSKI (Korea), LG Chem (Korea), Samsung (Korea) as “strategicpartners”
• Isnot sure the battery makers are up for the challenge.
• Stated that it would like to see all itsEV manufacturing supply chain steps established in Europe.
• Wouldcreate joint ventures and help finance battery production to persuade scepticalcell suppliers to back its push to produce EVs en masse.

AAM(YAG) aim to raise E70m. Given the above and the already very strong German involvement/investment,imo the planets are moving into alignment for Volkswagen to participate.

Thiswould fit in perfectly with the longer-term strategy for the Company ‘to increase its exposure to Europeaninvestors and to service the growing European EV/battery market with 4N HPA.’

References follow:

22/07/2019

https://unauthorised investment advice/resources/macquaries-bullish-backflip-good-news-for-lithium-players/

Late last year Macquarie claimed the lithium market was “sleepwalkinginto a tsunami of oversupply”.

Butmore recently it has backflipped on those predictions given German car giantVolkswagen’s aggressive push into electric vehicles (EVs).

VW board memberStefan Sommer told Reutersthat the company would need 150 GWh of battery production in both Asia and Europe by 2025, and double that by 2030.

He said the plan was to buy more than $US56 billion of (lithium loaded) battery cells andthat to date, it had identified Northvolt (Sweden), SKI (Korea), LG Chem (Korea), Samsung (Korea) and CATL (China) as“strategic partners”.

After a bit ofnumber-crunching, this is Macquarie’s expectation now: “Assuming an averagebattery size of 60Kwh, that implies 5m units of full EVs by 2025 and 10m by2030. Global EV sales were less than 2m units last year.”

July 10 2019

https://unauthorised investment advice/resources/barry-fitzgerald-macquarie-turns-bullish-on-lithium-as-vw-steps-up-its-ev-push/

On the assumption that the Germans know what they are doing,VW is basically talking about a wall of demand coming for lithium from the EVsector.

Interestingly, VW is not sure thebattery makers are up for the challenge.

Sommer told Reuters thatVW would create joint ventures andhelp finance battery production to persuade skeptical cell suppliers to backits push to produce EVs en masse.

AltechAnnouncement 6/3/2019

https://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20190306/pdf/4437wsyg33lk5z.pdf

W-Scope hasforecast a further increase in expected sales revenue that is 50% above its2019 guidance, primarily on the back of capital expenditure for four additionalHPA coated separator sheet production lines in response to coated separatorsheet supply contracts associated with the electric vehicle industry. Nearly 60% of W-Scope’s sales are to South Korea.

W-Scope hasa ~10% share of the global battery separator sheet market.

Delegates atthe conference reported strong demand for HPA from South Korea and Japan. SouthKorean battery manufacturers like LG Chemicals produce around 10 differenttypes of coated separators and use between 3,000tpa – 4,000tpa of HPA, itsprimary HPA suppliers appear to be Sumitomo Chemicals and Nippon Light Metal.Other major lithium-ion battery producers in South Korea include SK Innovation and Samsung SDI, Samsung is also a major user of HPA for itscoated separators.

At BatteryJapan 2019, the Altech booth attracted considerable interest as there appearsto be heightened concern about the perceivedlimited additional supply of high quality HPA from established producers