SK Innovation, page-361

Yes Rusty - totally agree with you and Flippa -  Nickel demand growth and pricing will IMHO be a bigger driver  than cobalt in AUZ future profitability.

In case you missed it this is what I posted on 2 Jan


UBS 2025 Battery MetalProjections by 2025;-
Also if you missed it a recent article – quoting from a UBS report from I believe from their HK/China office again confirming projected demand of majorbattery metals up to 2025.  The major ramp in Cobalt, Nickel and Lithium demand will really happen from 2020 to 21 as the major European manufacturers launch major ICE products change over to EV up in demand will co-inside well with a 2020-21 Sconi production date.

The benefit of Sconi havingthe right mix of minerals (Nickel and Cobalt Sulfate and Scandium) is verybeneficial as you can see below Battery Nickel demand (nickel sulfate isprojected to grow about 10 times between 2018 now and 2025).  Such significantly 10X demand is unlikely IMHO likely to be met by the current and projected new mines planned.
This amount of growth in Nickel Sulfate (battery Nickel) demand IMHO makes the Sconi BFS Nickel sulfate price used of U$9 per lb look conservative (i.e Sconi BFS used Nickel Price of US$7 + Nickel Sulfate Premium of US$2 = total US$9 per lb (see page 29 & 31 of the Sconi BFS)Note as Flippa alwayscorrectly reminds us, we should look at the Nickel sulfate / Nickel EV batterydemand rather than total nickel market demand which includes Ferro Nickelmainly steel and stainless steel demand which is very different from NickelSulfate.

Re article quoting UBS Report:-‘Battery demand forelectric vehicles was calculated by UBS to rise to 973GWh by 2025, comparedwith around 93GWh in 2018. The market for batteries in general is expected tobe 1,145GWh in 2025, up from 166GWh in 2018, the report added.

Significant opportunities may arise for NMC 622 batteries, which have a cathodecomprising 60% nickel, 20% manganese and 20% cobalt. This will be the mainglobal market by 2025, and will be worth almost $40 billion per year, the Swissbank said.

The demand for NMC 811 material, which has 80% nickel, could push this marketto be worth $25 billion per year. It could rank second among the most-in-demandbattery materials, the report added.

The growing use of electric vehicles could drive lithium demand to 1.15 milliontonnes per year by 2025, from 265,000 tpy in 2018, UBS said.

Consumption of nickel for batteries would total 665,000 tonnes in 2025,compared with 60,000 tonnes currently, according to the bank. This would pushtotal nickel use to 3.1 million tpy from 2.2 million tpy.

And the UBS report said that demand for cobalt has room to grow to 260,000 tpyin 2025, from 120,000 tpy in 2018. ‘

Keep the faith