Graphite shortage, page-12

Posted on August 8, 2016 If the Fitch rating agency is right, China will need to consume mountains of metals — copper, zinc, iron, as well as all the technology metals — for the next 14 years. Fitch is predicting that China will need to build new housing stock of 800 million square metres every yearthrough to 2030. As the Nikkei news service adds, that is roughly equivalent to the housing space of Singapore 15 times over for more than the next decade. (Apologies for the italics, but the sheer enormity of this forecast demands them.)

Where is the zircon going to come from for the tiles and wash basins? What about all that copper wiring? How much stainless steel, and therefore nickel, will all this require? Those buildings will all need steel containing manganese and niobium as well as iron ore (not to mention graphene). The digital electronics will need everything from tantalum to rare earths, from tin to lithium and graphite.

This is not the first time we have heard of the potential of China’s housing demand. Four years ago the international consulting firm McKinsey & Co predicted that China could every year add floor space totalling 2.5 times the entire residential and commercial square footage of Chicago (and India could add floor space equivalent to Chicago’s annually).

Asia is where it's at peeps ......
According to McKinsey Global Institute figures, China's middle class is 230 million people now, going to 630 million people in 10 years. This is an economy with an enormous amount of growth in purchasing power. What happens in a middle-income transition is that people get rich enough to buy certain things, like cars, larger homes, appliances. The whole developing world is going to have a big market in China to sell to. It positively affects everybody.
China + India = $$$