So I've been doing a bit of digging lately into who might be the off-take counter party. Not that it matters greatly but it would be nice to know, right?
Well, it's
complete speculation on my behalf so take it for what it is below this line. However....
I think it might be either Panasonic or Samsung SDI.
Why do I think that?
Well there has been noise in the market that Tesla has been trying to secure new battery materials supply with SQM and by extension KDR. That may very well be true because they currently do business for Li with Albermarle out of Nevada/Silver Peak (the only working Li mine there is Albermarle -->
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/12/0...duction-capacity-uses-chemistry-future-plans/)
(
http://www.ktvn.com/story/34405088/nevadas-silver-peak-lithium-mine-prepares-to-ramp-up-production)
And have been having supply issues with Panasonic.
So the Li then goes through to China/Japan (Panasonic factory) before the ready batteries come back to the US for installation in Tesla cars. The article also points to Panasonic's capacity issues and at time Tesla had to go to Samsung SDI to get batteries. Incidentally, the Samsung batteries were used in the build of the South Australian battery storage because Panasonic couldn't supply these. (
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/09/3...ttery-cells-129-mwh-south-australia-facility/)
Consider these facts also:
- Tesla is looking to build a large virtual power grid in SA (
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/02/0...ower-plant-using-50000-homes-south-australia/)
- Tesla is bidding for at least 2 more mega battery storage implementations and expects to triple it's powerpack business in 2018 (so that means utilising it's current suppliers to deploy new battery storage facilities) (
http://www.ktvn.com/story/34405088/nevadas-silver-peak-lithium-mine-prepares-to-ramp-up-production)
- Elon Musk's future plan include building regional Gigafactories to service regional demand (
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/12/0...duction-capacity-uses-chemistry-future-plans/)
- Panasonic is expanding regional production to keep up with demand and ready to ramp up by early 2020. Coincidence in timing? Given AUZ plans to be in production in 2019ish? (
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/09/3...omotive-lithium-ion-battery-production-japan/)
So all this builds towards a massive demand shortfall with the Tesla/Panasonic/Samsung ecosystem in our region and from their Q4 letter
“At some point in 2018, we expect to begin generating positive quarterly operating income on a sustained basis. With the planned ramp of both Model 3 and our energy storage products,
our rate of revenue growth this year is poised to significantly exceed last year’s growth rate. The launch of Model 3 is what Tesla had been building towards from day one.
So, joining the dots...it looks like it might be those two as the Li supply is probably well advanced, but to make batteries they need an ethical source (near production by around 2019) of Cobalt.
Out of all the ethical Cobalt projects we know of most of them are in Australia and AUZ is probably the most advanced.
Thoughts??
(20min delay)