General data, page-1081

Again, price /capex may become secondary to national interest, particularly for the US for Cobalt, Scandium.

Outside of Rio producing some scandium from bi product in Canada, almost all supply comes from Russia, China, Kazakhstan and the Ukraine....

Indo and DRC are the major producers of cobalt, neither of which are eligible for the IRA credits / are controlled by China

50% of nickel is produced in Indo, growing to 70% by 2030 and is heavily polluting/ Chinese controlled

Laterite out of Australia is really one of the only alternatives to large scale IRA eligible nickel sources - some Sulphide from Canada coming online but long lead time, is vastly cleaner from pollution and carbon perspective, + long life.

Sunrise is one of the only projects globally that can come online before 2030, deficits to start in 2027 for nickel despite Indo ramp up, and indications that their high grade nickel deposits may deplete heavily in the next 5 years.....also potential moratorium on new nickel projects to extend life of indo nickel resourcing....

Nickel price from 2025 on should stabilise, China is looking to stimulate their economy and drag the construction sector out of the doldrums which will support NPI demand as well as ongoing urbanisation from the 3rd world. Alongside a forecast 17million EVs to be sold this year up from 14million (BNEF source https://about.bnef.com/blog/electrified-transport-market-outlook-4q-2023-growth-ahead/) so ~21% CAGR. US Demand forecast to be 500k tonnes of nickel by 2030. From what i have read ~ 100,000 tonnes of future supply is being curtailed due to price pressures ....3 years to build a refinery and a year to ramp up means if SRL gets funded unlikely to be fully operational before 2028 as demand potentially starts to exceed supply....IRA requirements get more onerous in the next 2 years.....Despite LFP improvements, solid state Li-ION / High nickel battery demand is likely to still make up 40-50% of all batteries, investments in GIGA factories have been to NCM chemistry in the West, some LFP coming online as well.....high performance vehicles will require NCM for power and distance, everyday cars likely LFP....

Nickel is like a yoyo, crashes as supply comes online and outpaces demand, supply is curtailed in low price, demand grows, supply is soaked up, price increases, more supply on, price down, supply curtailed, demand grows, price increase....so on so forth....

Cobalt less so as is major bi-product of Copper and NIckel so will be produced no matter what and potentially pressure pricing regardless, although the geopolitcal/ global militarisation should increase demand alongside a slower EV demand but still likely to be in deficit by late this decade....

The US DoD could underwrite the standalone Scandium refinery to completely onshore supply away from China/Russia - at US$25mio, its a 100% IRR if they can supply 20tonnes per annum of scandium

Anyways, my brain dump....spectacularly cheap this stock....