RE:RE:lithium revenue
wasagastar wrote: That's just one field - 119th of their available production should they deploy everywhere which is highly unlikely. But could they turn this into a 200k tonne a year operation within 3/4 years? Likely if partners are big oil and margins good.
A paradigm shift in the automotive industry is underway and the big oil producers cannot ignore the wholesale transition for much longer. The article below will hopefully give some indication of the pace of change and subsequent increased demand for lithium.
The announcement of an exploration agreement between MGX and ($37 Billion mcap) Canadian Natural Resources may be construed as the first steps of an industry addressing the disinct possibility of being rendered obsolete by a fundamental decline in the production of internal combustion engines.
If MGX can demonstrate commercial viability of their petrolithium concept, a share price re-rate of 'Tech Stock circa1998-99' proportions is not beyond the realms of possibility. The future demand for lithium is sufficient to sustain a six-figure tonnage per year. Every 1% of global car sales that are EV's = 20k t.p.a Li. Can you imagine 10%, 20%, 30% ?
And this does not include the lithium required for bus and truck EV's, grid storage & home energy battery storage which could eclipse EV's in terms of demand for lithium given the respective battery size.
September marked the first month in history that U.S. electric car ("EVs") sales were over 1% of total sales, coming in at 1.15%, with total year-to-date sales of over 108,000, over 115,000North America wide. The North American Market is expected to reach 175,000 by the end of the year. Everyone's getting on board, including Audi (ETR: NSU), BMW (ETR: BMW), Mercedes (DAI: XE), Lexus (NYSE:TM) and Volkswagen (ETR: VOW3). One of the biggest players in the world - General Motors (NYSE:GM) - is planning to mass produce the Chevy Bolt EV by 2017-2018, eyeing 30,000 cars already next year.
Europe sold 125,000 EV's as of August, with annual sales expected to come in at 200,000. China has sold 193,000 units as of August, with some predicting 450,000 units by year end. Combined with other markets like Japan and Australia, the projection tops 900,000 units for the world in 2016. That would mean another year of +60 percent year-over-year growth in EV sales.
These are exciting projections, but the record increase in September numbers for the U.S. are even more striking when combined with the record volume growth in some European markets like Belgium, Austria, and Germany - where a new incentive program saw the country break the 1% mark for the first time in September. 2016 will mark over 1% electric vehicle penetration globally, and if the current rates hold, that means 5 million EV's or 6% global market share by 2020.
Assuming an average 30 kWh battery pack across the spectrum of electric cars and 0.814 kg per kWh, that means that 2016 EV sales alone will require almost 22,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent. Considering the huge increase from 550,000 EV's in 2015, it looks like another 8,500 tonnes of the metal will be required just for new electric car sales this year. With a new lithium mine coming in at around 15,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate each year, the lithium demand from just the increase in EV sales this year will account for more than half of one good-sized new mine.
By 2020, projected new EV sales will consume over 122,000 tonnes a year - or five to eight lithium mines.
OilPrice:Petrolithium
Rockstone&OilPriceArticle