There are recently many noises about Lithium, and even extended to Li-ion battery technology, a simple fact is Li is the lightest metal in the world, which made it unique position that cannot be replaced.
The recent replacement is because the high rising raw material cost, which the alternative will be, and can be developed with some scenarios, i.e. CALT Sodium battery can be used in ESS, and low range transports. But again, as an alternative. It is said currently Sodium battery are 30% cheaper than Lithium batteries, so when the pricing mechanism settled down, Sodium battery has no other benefits.
On the other hand, Solid State Battery, i.e. Lithium Metal battery is under development, and is hoped to be the solution for good, but I checked 'Solid Power' timing line last night, they indicated 2027 as SOP (Start of Production).
Coming back to the Li-ion battery supplier chain, what I don't like is, 80% production capacity is in China, but why, because the western country is sleeping, and politicians are c*s(I am sorry but they are). They have done nothing but saying the shit.
KB has made today's situation very clear approx. 2-3 years ago, he said, there isn't enough refinery, and as follows, we see the chemical price rocketing, simply because rules of demand. There is no secret in the industry. The well informed LT holders knew these.
What I really dislike about these Chinese companies is, they have made a fortune, but they dared not to say; They have made the raw material supplier the blame for the high cost that end user needs to pay, which is totally wrong. If we look at the absolute price changes among the spodumene vs Li chemical.
So my prediction is, once there are more refineries online especially outside of China(Oh, please be hurry up POSCO JV), the chemical price can settle down, without seeing a significant decline of Spodumene price. With regards to spodumene price, who knows, it only depends on how many mines can bring online. It did not rely on whoever issue the reports. They only procure misinformation and confusion.
All in my own opinion.
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