Good News & Bad News, page-12413

Key takeaways.

Inventories of incumbent suppliers low. They need to build this back up.

Cathode demand emerging which points to a big H1 2023.

No projects ahead of schedule.

Greenfield project % of new supply is growing and of them, unconventional flowsheets (DLE etc) are a growing %, so risk to new supply being delayed is growing.

Battery grade supply is what matters. Qualification is 6+ months for Brownfield & longer for Greenfield.

Reprocessing of non battery grade = double counting and takes up processing facility capacity to do this.

PLS now being talked about in the same breath as the majors such as ALB.

Wait time for EV's blowing out. ICE sales dropping as new purchases are waiting for EV's to become available.

EV penetration is currently ahead of expectations (not by us)

RK Equity sees Lithium testing RMB500k/t (US $75k) if EV sales track back to 800k/month.

EV sales have been muted in H1 due to lockdowns etc and price has hardly been dented.

Spodumene is the quickest route to increased supply.

So, it appears the risk of the spodumene price heading back below $4k pt (my figure) anytime soon are low to not going to happen.

Not looking good for those hoping for the Lithium price to decrease or the likes of Equities like PLS to continue a downward trend.