There is so much funny but painful manipulation about the lithium industry, and it's so stupid, however it's being done by the main players (instos, you know who they are!), and now the media joined them.
It all looks like to me that the western BEOT (Big end of the Town) wants our lithium shares.For example;
Bloomberg was saying yesterday that sodium ion batteries are threatening lithium ion batteries. That's such a stupid comment from this giant media player. The whole industry knows what is going to be done with the sodium ion batteries.
They have low energy density and will be used in very small and/or compact cars of course. However they are not very much cheaper than LFP (Lithium iron phosphate) batteries so when the car size is a little bigger than a very small car then sodium ion battery can't be used, or has to be used in combination with a Li-Ion battery (dual battery). The cost of 1kWh in sodium ion battery is US$60 while it's US$80 in a LFP battery. So a sodium ion battery hasn't got much advantage over the LFP batteries.
When the vehicle size is getting bigger (Mid and large size cars, luxury EVs, trucks and buses) the nickel based lithium ion batteries are being used. This will go like that for the next 10-15 years until very high capacity new lithium ion batteries developed.
The table below shows the battery capacity needed for each battery type in 2019 and 2040. Sodium ion has a little chance but that much to kill lithium ion batteries.
So what are Bloomberg or other media channels trying to do?
You decide!
The market size for Sodium ion batteries are already set to ~US$5b in 2032. And there will be some factories producing it. We all know it's not going to increase exponentially like the lithium ion battery market. (see the table below). They will be used mainly in grid storage battery applications which we never included in the lithium ion battery capacity when we talk about it as we only talk EV battery capacity.
You can already buy cheap low quality sodium ion batteries if you look at Alibaba. That's fine.
I'm even expecting Lithium Air batteries will be used even in airplanes after 2035. They are being developed now. The energy density in kg was being calculated as 1000Wh/kg before but the new research tests show that they can go over 3000Wh/kg (or 3kWh/kg). That would be enough to fly a 737-800 plane for more than 2 hours according to my calculations.
Here it is;
I'll give an example how a 737-800 plane can fly with battery power.
Let's calculate what would be the battery size of that plane for 2 hours flight.
The 737-800 burns 3,200 litres of jet fuel per hour. (that is such a big and pollution, just imagine)
2 hour x 3200 lt = 6400 lt consumption for 2 hours.
1 lt of jet fuel is equivalent of 9.1kWh.
9.1kW x 6400 lt = 58,240kWh
So the plane needs a 58,200kWh battery at least.
Let's make it 80,000kWh for safety.
In today's terms the best battery can give 0.3kWh per kg. That means the 737 plane needs a battery at 266 tonne weight. That is too much for that plane.
However When the battery tech improved;Solid state battery will have 600Wh and Lithium Air battery will have 1000Wh.That means when Li-Air battery tech is done then the weight will be 1/3 of 266 tonne which is less than 90t.Than 737 can fly with that.
New tech Li-Air batteries will have over 3000W.That makes the battery weight even much less around 27 tonne. And that would be enough to fly a 737-800 more than 2 hours. Very good for all kind of short destinations.
That's why the western BEOT wants our lithium shares IMO.
Lithium is going to be the most important mineral in the very near future.
And we have the best mine in the world.
(Greenbushes mine will not be exist in 2035!)Another stupidty is happening in the market atm;
Shorters are betting on as lithium stocks are going to die!
The best example is PLS.
Why on earth you can short PLS at 20.26% or 612m shares?
And why on earth you still short LTR when it's valuated at $3 by two major miners?
These shorters are betting on PLS so hard, it's going to be very interesting to see what's going to happen.
OPEC style lithium cartel may happen soon!I don't know why those shorters don't consider that if 2 or 3 biggest spod producers reduce the sales and then production, as Tianqi/IGO part of Greenbushes JV stated they will do it in Q1 2024, then the lithium prices will go very high again.
See what IGO said on its Sept. Quarterly report on 30/10/2023;
ALB can join Tianqi/IGO JV (that's what is, expected). Then PLS can also join that action as PLS is being shorted so much.That'd be like an OPEC kind of action, and very likely imo.
Chris Ellison might join them (Holds 50% of both Mt Marion and Wodgina).
Greenbushes and PLS are already supplies 2mt spod conc. (1400kt and 600kt respectively).
That's more than 300kt LCE. And that's nearly 40% of global LCE demand.
If they cut 25% (Tianqi/IGO JV stated they will cut sales 25% in Q1 2024) , then the Chinese market will struggle to find supply.
But, what those shorters will do then? Where and how they will find to close their 612m PLS shares?
These guys are really very brave as the PLS CEO Henderson said on last AGM.
Just recently JP Morgan increased it holding in PLS to 7.5% from 5.5% then brought down to 5.5% again. (I'm not following all details and don't know what's the last situation in PLS).
It all looks like to me that the BEOT wants our lithium shares.We always blame the Chinese but it's not Chinese making this much manipulation in lithium market. It's the western BEOT imo. You can see even Tianqi and Ganfeng lost 2/3 of its stock price in last 18 months while CATL lost half. Of course Chinese is doing its best to get the lithium price down but there are so many players in different segments of lithium supply chain in China, they can't act as a sole body. They are also trying to kill each other. For example many of the lepidolite miners, the lithium chemical producers from lepidolite (integrated and non-integrated) will die soon because of the low lithium prices. Many of the Chinese brine lake producers will also die.
The big lithium price reset is coming soon!That is going to be another great RESET for lithium price. It will go very high again because the demand from the EV side has grown 40% this year. So simple.
But the western BEOT do every kind of manipulation without caring any legal consequences of the manipulation (because they do the manipulation, when it comes out to the court decision after 2-3-4 years time they pay couple of hundred millions when they already made billions out of that). That's how the legal system works unfortunately.
Just be careful that they use media for their manipulations. They got media channels to create misleading news to demoralise the investors.
So we need to make more research to be confident of our investments. That's what I'm doing constantly for myself and family.
(20min delay)