Understanding lithium demand, page-671

@8horse I thought I would bring your post - Post #: 39750259 - here and in particular the following picture contained in that post below.



Thought I would have a crack at what 2000 GWh capacity means in 2030 in terms of new spodumene equivalent hard rock mines (and yes I know some increase in supply will come from brine). That is in relation to the pic of demand in your post. But thought looking at the forecasts from spodumene hard rock equivalent gives a guide as to new capacity required.

Some simple conversions - 1 GWh is essentially 900 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) and you need 7.5 tonnes of spodumene concentrate to produce 1 tonne of LCE at a 90% recovery rate. Recovery rates are assumed to be higher in conversions to LCE than in producing spodumene.

Now in producing spodumene if your average recovery rate is 80% then depending on grade of deposit you will need up to 20.3 operations, if average mine equivalent is Li20 is 1%, (16.2 operations if ore feed grades 1.25% Li20), with each operation having the equivalent hard rock equivalent ore feed capacity of 5 mtpa. Obviously far more if the configuration is 2 mtpa ore feed capacity operations.



If your recovery rate is 65%, then your ore feed to produce 1 tonne 6% grade spodumene concentrate equivalent is 23% higher (when compared to 80% recovery rate) which means you now need up to 24.9 operations of equivalent 5mtpa hard rock scale where resource grades hard rock equivalent 1% (20.0 operations at average 1.25% Li20 grade).



Obviously what I am saying is I doubt the existing hard rock producers plus brine producers are able to scale up so as to prevent new greenfield entrants like AVZ enterring the market by 2030. The key though is whether AVZ has the ability to enter the market before 2025 because 2030 is a long way off. By 2025 the graph is showing 1000 GWh needed so divide the results above by 2 (and my gut feeling is there certainly is capacity for AVZ to enter the market by then btw as I have posted throughout this thread especially the first few pages of it).

This will be more so if solid state batteries enter the market given graphite in the anode of the battery has at least the same amount of kg as lithium needed in lithium ion batteries (which means if lithium replaces the graphite in batteries well you can expect at least a 50% increase in the lithium need in batteries (but I suspect solid state batteries will be in the higher end market should the technology prove successful, meaning NCM and NCA battery technologies will continue to be the predominant go in the 2020s IMO.

The other factor that I think the above forecasts are understating is in the energy storage stationary market. I suspect as economics improves for renewable energy, i.e. solar on your roof for example is becoming more attractive, that more households will have access to battery storage technologies so as to store energy from such things as solar panels so it can be used at night etc. Also, IMO in smaller scale operations for commercial purposes lithium batteries may also aid them in energy storage options (but for large scale energy storage projects in the stationary market, as I indicated in the first post in this thread, I suspect that they will be the domain of vanadium in future unless of course the vanadium price makes them prohibitive (and makes lithium a better option in the large scale energy storage market). The point is the energy storage options of households and small business in the stationar market (EVs are in the moveable market btw) adds another significant layer to potential lithium demand in any event IMO IMO.

All IMO IMO, VB drunk, bedtime LOL