Lithium producers can't expand fast enough to meet demand: An interview with Orocobre CEO Richard Seville
This article from Mining.com may be of interest to subscribers. Here is a section:
So the project was one of those moments when you look back on it where we did the hard analytical work, drew a conclusion, acted on our judgement, and it worked and went according to expectations.
I don’t mean picking a certain price I just mean a general trend. I’m quite proud of that actually and sometimes the detail work is really valuable. We’ve redone it recently to understand the hard rock sector and the conversion plant capacity in China. Although that’s harder than what we did in Chile I think we got a pretty good understanding.
That again supports the view that supply growth is being over estimated and over simplified and that it will take longer—just like we did—and there will be delays because of complications in China and offtake and everything will slip because it always does.
So when you look at the supply/demand curve, our view is that it (lithium market) goes very tight for a number of years. And the first relief, if it is relief, will really be that period around 2020.
The only way to get around the fact many sources of renewable energy are intermittent is through storage. Right now lithium is the benchmark electrolyte for batteries’ and a great deal of research is going into developing better anodes and cathodes to boost energy density, safety, recharging speed and cost. That suggests the lithium product cycle still has a long way to run which is benefit for miners of the element not least as new potential demand growth drivers evolve.
Orocobre surged higher from late 2015 before hitting a medium-term peak near A$5. It found support in the region of the trend mean from October and is now retesting its peak. A sustained move below A$4 would be required to question medium-term scope for additional upside.
Albemarle spent the latter half of 2016 consolidating above the underlying 5-year range and a sustained move below the trend mean would be required to question the medium-term upward bias.
FMC Corp rallied impressively from November but has paused below $60 which is allowing the short-term overbought condition to be unwound.