Hitting the floor price of some high-cost producers. Hopefully it holds here. Really depends on the SC6 price holding. I did see something positive on the demand side contrary to the nonsense the media puts out about 'disappointing EV demand'. Media saw a falling carbonate graph and always resorted to the lazy (wrong) explanation that its demand at fault rather than the massive increase in China of high-cost sources and overcapacity of converters (sort of reminds me of how shale oil kicked in years ago at high oil prices).
Anyhow, on the EV demand side.
Firstly, EV sales are up 36% YOY so far in 2023 according to CPCA.
However, according to Adamas Intelligence, average EV battery capacity is also up 10% YOY in July. If this holds over the year, the actual EV battery capacity growth (which translates to material/chemical requirement) would be,
1.0 (car sale baseline for end of 2022) X 1.36 (36% EV sales growth in 2023) X 1.1 (avg battery increase per EV) = 1.5 or 50%
Adamas later posted that kwh output (battery output) for 2023 will have growth of greater than 45% YOY over 2022 which seems in line with the 50% battery growth calculated earlier.
There is no way mines/brines can support a 50% annual growth medium term.
AGY Price at posting:
19.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
