Prices of key metals for EV to soar higher over the next years
With the growing demand for electric vehicles (EVs) worldwide, a “war for raw materials” has been budding over the years, recording all-time high in the prices of the three key metals – lithium, nickel, and cobalt. Leading innovators and forecasters of transportation electrification that use these metals, such as Tesla and Rho Motion, respectively, are closely monitoring the foreseeable supply shortage that drives these metal price uptrends.
Starting with accelerated sales of the lithium-based batteries for the EVs from 610,000 tonnes this year, versus to 490,000 tons last year that was priced at $50,000 a tonne in China, a high probability of shortage for the coming years is projected, as the “supply struggles to keep up with the demands, given long lead times between the first production from the lithium resources to the market,” according to BMI analyst George Miller. Working around these numbers, a 26,000-ton deficit as compared to last year's 12,000 tons is expected.
Along with this, worldwide nickel and nickel briquette stock supplies have fallen by 65% and 67% since April 2021 at around 88,812 and 65,676 tons, respectively. The demand, around this time, was about 2.8 million tonnes. Fortunately, despite this rattle in the equilibrium of the supply chain, this year’s projection estimates a demand of 3 million tons with a price increase of 14.5%, which would mean a surplus over demand of 43,000 tons as compared to the 159,000-ton deficit in 2021, as forecasted by Macquire analyst Jim Lennon.
Lastly, delays in the cobalt shipment of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which extracts more than 70% of the world’s supply of cobalt affected the domestic stocks, had increased the demand this year at about 177,500 tonnes, amounting to around $70,000 per tonne today. This has been the highest level since July 2018 and is expected to continue under the deficit premise.
Combating these complications in the supply chains of these “new black gold” of the EV industry, StrategX Elements Corporation fundamentally aims to boost the global supply through its exploration projects and discoveries of ethically sourced critical mineral resource deposits.
Reference:
"Key Components for Tesla: Lithium, Nickel And Cobalt Price Evolution | Torque News". 2022. Torque News. (https://bit.ly/33vk9Zw)