Lithium hopefuls (at least the hard-rock ones) have a five-year window of opportunity, according to a Melbourne, Australia, brokerage.
Beer & Co, in reviewing one Australian company’s lithium plans, comments that its projections show “prices will fall in about 5 years, when supply from the plethora of early stage projects that have been announced during 2016 come to maturity”. It expects the spodumene concentrate price to remain at about $650/tonne for an extended period. It is assuming prices for 6% LiO2 spodumene concentrates will, in about the second half of 2022, begin falling and ,by 2024, plateau at around $475/tonne (by which time, presumably, production costs will have risen considerably).
That five-year window expectation is based on the assumption that lithium demand continues to be strong (and also presumably assumes that not too many other hard-rock lithium projects get up before 2022).
