Just listened to the latest global lithium podcast that features Rio Tinto . After listening to them outline their strategy first for where they want to be by 2030 , then the specifics of the Rincon project , my takeaway was none of their words versus their actions adds up at all .
So they want to be a major lithium producer by 2030 , acknowledging the importance of brine assets to what will have to be a massively growing world supply chain, possibly 5x-10x what we produce globally today . Yet they have at this stage bought a brine asset using dle in a very remote part of Argentina , that doesn’t even have road infrastructure to site and that moreover they openly acknowledge between the 30-37 minute of the podcast will very much start at the lower end of the production scale . I inferred a very low figure well under 20,000 Tons though it wasn’t said explicitly . This seems necessary so “ they can understand the technology” as Marie Finlayson put it , with obvious reference to the dle tech Rincon we’re advancing and then they plan on scaling up by 2030 . Then at other points they acknowledge that speed to market now is vital with their lithium development plans .
This is not a coherent strategy because what your saying in one breath is not consistent with what you saying 5 minutes later and your actions in buying Rincon.
Now there are two ways to look at it , take their comments at face value which if I was a rio Tinto shareholder I wouldn’t be impressed by . So your telling me we just paid over a billion dollars for an asset that we have to slowly scale up as we don’t understand yet how this dle tech will go as it scales , so it needs to be baby steps initially ? Yet we are already behind the curve in our position in an industry that you have spent most of the podcast throwing out cliches about our commitment to climate change and the importance of wanting to be involved in this industry’s next stage of development to feed the huge demand from ev’s. Yet we won’t be producing much of anything significant until 2030 ? Who likely wins in this race to have the best natural resources feeding the ev supply chain may well be decided by 2030 .
Second interpretation and the one I am leaning too as surely Rio can’t employ people to senior mgt positions that would be this silly strategically , is that Rio have to buy a lot more brine assets and quickly as what they have with Rincon simply isn’t going to get them where they want to be by 2030 . So watch this space , I said on this forum a few weeks back , watch rio as a likely buyer / suitor and I am more convinced then ever of this after to listening to this podcast .
Secondly again tired topic on thread but I like it
, but contrast rio statements around scaling a dle tech versus lakes statements around how they can scale . Again both positions to me seem diametrically opposed.
Of course it left me with the nagging question in my head , surely if the world needs all this lithium sooner rather than latter and it’s a race now to get to market with these new resources while supply is so short and prices so high , if you were rio why would you even bother with risky dle approach unless like lake you had as your resource something much lower in concentration . Rio Tinto prior to buying Rincon didn’t have that sunk position problem and had choices , so why would you buy a resource that is clearly slow to scale , when now time is of the essence ? Something not adding up for me but either way , I expect Rio to doing a lot more buying of lithium assets and ones they can scale and bring to market much faster .
(20min delay)