General Discussion, page-2123

I agree that that is a positive forward looking move but going on the price paid commercialising it may still be early days. Little doubt though that lithium metal battery technology will be a real change-up for the sector when its time comes.

I think the issue for me with Arcadium and Graves is that they see mid-stream processors as being entitled to the bulk of the profit as lithium moves from the ground into batteries. I'm not convinced that is right, I think there is some prospect that the upstream miners will hog the profits. My understanding is that that is how the iron ore sector has been working for at least the last decade, with the likes of BHP and Rio making margins like they were software companies while selling into super competitive downstream markets.

I believe that was the point Ken Brinsden was making at Diggers: while the Chinese have flooded the mid and down stream portions of the market it will be the upstream players best positioned to take most of the profit share over time.