Interesting comments from Mike Henry, CEO of BHP regarding its...

Interesting comments from Mike Henry, CEO of BHP regarding its decision to not get involved with Lithium Mining.
Maybe its my bias, but I cant help think that battery recycling is going to flattern the cost curve long term for lithium prices once the recycling has closed the loop.

Bank of America mining conference 16.05.2023

AUDIENCE
Lithium is not part of your portfolio at the moment. What are your thoughts on that?

MIKE HENRY (CEO, BHP)
Yes. So we've elected not to participate in lithium. And there's probably two strands to the response. So the
fundamental – as we go about testing which commodities we want to be in, we want to ensure that the industry is
large enough to make it meaningful for BHP. And I think in the case of lithium, it is or it will ultimately be.
Two, we have to believe that the shape of the cost curve long-term is steep enough such that if we have the right
assets, we can generate very high margins – i.e., at the low end of the cost curve. The assets have to be
individually large and aligned with our capability set. And our belief in lithium is that over the long-term, the cost
curve is more likely to flatten out, therefore, not give us the margin potential that we would normally be looking for.