General Discussion, page-1290

Today, Defence Minister R. Marles expressed very strong concerns that the Chinese Communist Party is approaching ex-ADF pilots to obtain secret information, pertaining to Australia's defence.

https://www.minister.defence.gov.au/statements/2022-11-09/statement-efforts-recruit-former-adf-pilots

The deteriorating relationship with China (& its continuing threat to attack Taiwan, & support for Russia's brutal invasion etc.) will compel Australia (& many other democratic countries) to increase the importance of protecting crucial supply chains, particularly in areas where China has strong market share &/or control.
Li development & processing etc. for EV batteries is, obviously, one of these areas- indirectly, the changing geopolitical environment will benefit ESS in obtaining increased govt. support, funding etc.

"When presenting at a FastMarkets conference in September 2021, Prabhakar Patil, the former CEO of LG Chem Power, a maker of lithium-ion cells, stated that the Chinese share of the battery market—from raw materials extraction to production of battery packs—has increased dramatically from 60% in 2018 to 72% in 2020...

BloombergNEFestimates the numbers are even higher. “China’s success [in battery manufacturing] results from its large domestic battery demand, 72GWh, and control of 80% of the world’s raw material refining, 77% of the world’s cell capacity and 60% of the world’s component manufacturing.

China’s domination of the lithium battery market for EVs was no accident. According to the Institute for Defense Analysis (IDA)report,“Lithium-Ion Battery Industrial Base in the U.S. and Abroad,” Chinese battery-maker BYD kicked off the EV market by purchasing a Chinese EV automaker in 2003. BYD then built the EVs with batteries from its vertically-integrated, domestic supply chain.

More recently, over the past decade, the Chinese government has spent somewhere between $60B and $100B increasing the domestic market for lithium batteries by subsidizing the production of cheap (as in$4,500) EVs and helping companies build out the lithium mining and refining infrastructure to support them, said David Deckelbaum, managing director for Sustainability & Energy Transition at the investment banking firm Cowen".

https://www.onecharge.biz/blog/how-china-came-to-dominate-the-market-for-lithium-batteries-and-why-the-u-s-cannot-copy-their-model/