Noticed this article detailing a huge ramp-up in Chinese lithium...

Noticed this article detailing a huge ramp-up in Chinese lithium carbonate supply between 2008-2010 which could well flood the market for many years, even in the most bullish demand environment. A little concerning....

http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/555585


Although China has Salt Lake with high resource value, China achieved technology breakthrough in 2004, which made China enter the global lithium carbonate market. Presently, the lithium carbonate production capacity is only 33 thousand tons in China, and 45 thousand-ton production capacity will be released from 2008 to 2010. As China is the main region of global lithium carbonate production capacity release, it will influence much on the global lithium carbonate supply layout.

At present, the main production capacity in the world mainly concentrates in SQM, FMC and Chemetall, the accumulated market shares of which accounts to 73%.

Along with the continuous input of large-scaled lithium carbonate projects in China, the demand and supply balance of lithium carbonate will worsen soon. The global lithium carbonate surplus will amount to 13.2 thousand tons in 2007, and it will become worse in 2008. The supply will be much larger than the demand, which will lead to rapid price drop.