You're doing a good job Rob for my accumulation :D The thesis...

You're doing a good job Rob for my accumulation

The thesis I'm banking on (again longer term as that's all I really do) is the differential between build out time of bringing a greenfield mine to production compared to a conversion/battery/ev plant. Its about 10 years for the former compared to 2-3 years for the later. The vast majority of the US IRA for example is going into the rapidly responding upstream infrastructure and very little into actual new mines. In fact, conversion capacity is forecast to keep up with the lithium transition, but it will be short on raw materials.

Looking at Australia, which is by far the capital of raw material output for the lithium sector, you have Greenbushes (360kt LCE), PLS (310kt LCE), Wodgina (260kt LCE) as the big 3 miners. The rest add up to about half of Wodgina (Mt Marion, Mt Cattlin, Finniss etc).

Demand is expected to 3X to 7x by 2030.

What's in the pipeline in Australia remembering the very long development times? Earl Grey at 180kt LCE and Kathleen Valley for Liontown at about the same output. That adds up to one Greenbushes once those projects are constructed, commissioned and ramped up to full output. THAT'S IT! All the rest are tiny. There is nothing in the pipeline! Yes, the big projects will ramp up production but there are economic limits on this. Basically, IMO, there will be a big structural shortage in the future because the global pipelines for raw mines/brines is just way too thin to handle the demand growth.

So, I just accumulate, here and elsewhere as the sector retraces on the Chinese spots price retrace.