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Message: Patience 2.0

I've been following Matt Bohlsen's articles in SA for years.  He is certainly a wealth of knowledge about lithium mining and he does a monthly summary of the lithium mining industry.  Looking at his chart that he  took from Bloomberg, titled Annual Lithium-Ion Battery Demand, I can't believe that the sections representing E buses and Stationary Storage aren't much larger in their projection for future demand.  No matter how you slice it, though, whether you accept Elon Musk's projections, Bloomberg projections or those of Matt Bohlsen you still have to conclude that by 2030 the Lithium demand will increase quite markedly.

I think Bohlsen is correct to question Musk's prediction that 2030 will see 100% EV conversion and 100% renewable energy with storage.  I think that rate of conversion is just not possible, except in Elon's mind.  That being said, a 50% conversion might be possible, although that too seems somewhat visionary.  Regardless of what that final rate of conversion is over the next 9 years it is abundantly clear that it will place a very significant tipping of the scales on the Demand side of the Demand vs Supply equation.  His figures for the total number of Gigafactories already in existence here in 2020 were shocking:  86 now operational and by 2029 increasing to a total of 167.

Bohlsen comments in his conclusion:  " Running the numbers in excel shows how profound the impact could be. In fact the EV metals demand surge would be absolutely enormous and almost certainly limited by EV metals supply. Can anyone supply Tesla with 86x more lithium (than 2019 levels), 43x more cobalt, 86x more graphite, and 58x more nickel? Little wonder Musk is talking to every large nickel miner right now, and has signed lithium deals with multiple companies"

He goes on to say: "While it's highly likely that these grand targets will not be met, even if the global targets were only 50% met, there would be a massive tsunami of demand for EV metals accelerating each year this decade. I would think that lithium, cobalt, graphite, and nickel supply would not be able to even come close to keeping up to this scale of demand ramp.

All this should mean that the 2020's decade should be a super-cycle decade for battery metal miners"

Bohlsen follows all the major and most of the Junior lithium mining companies in the world and he has done so for years.  His views are something to be taken seriously, he isn't a typical "journalist" reporting on a subject in which he has only transient interest.  This "guy" is extremely knowledgeable about the subject matter, so his opinions are not to be viewed in the same context as those of writers who only dable in the field of lithium mining and lithium suppy.  JMO   Okiedo

 

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