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Speaker 1: Hey, Dina, the Wetterburn meteorite. Have you heard of it?

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Speaker 1: I didn't even know meteorites had names. Well, I stumbled

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Speaker 1: across an article about it the other day. So in

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Speaker 1: outside the town of Wetterburn in Victoria, Australia, this guy

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Speaker 1: finds an apple sized piece of metal by the side

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Speaker 1: of the road. He takes it to the Museum of Victoria,

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Speaker 1: where it's determined to be a meteorite, and pieces of

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Speaker 1: this thing were sliced off and sent to scientists around

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Speaker 1: the world for analysis. The meteorite is mostly iron and nickel,

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Speaker 1: indicating that it was likely part of the core of

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Speaker 1: a doomed planet that got smashed by some other planet

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Speaker 1: or moon or asteroid, and after billions of years in

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Speaker 1: the asteroid belt, it made its way to Australia. So

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Speaker 1: why was it in the news? Well, good question. So

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Speaker 1: some research at cal Tech recently found that it contains

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Speaker 1: a mineral not previously found in nature FE five C two,

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Speaker 1: a kind of iron carbide. So apparently there are five

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Speaker 1: hundred to six hundred thousand minerals discovered or created in

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Speaker 1: the lab, but less than six thousand or found in nature.

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Speaker 1: This is a new one and only when a mineral

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Speaker 1: is found in nature, did they get to name it?

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Speaker 1: So they got to name this one, and it's called

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Speaker 1: ed Scotite after this cosmo chemist. Yes, that's a thing

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Speaker 1: at the University of Hawaii named ed Scott So ed Scottite.

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Speaker 1: Very cool. Yeah right, that was my first thought too.

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Speaker 1: But what could this thing be used for? What do

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Speaker 1: you think? Batteries? Batteries? Sure, I don't know about that,

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Speaker 1: but you know, it turns out that nothing really as

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Speaker 1: far as I can tell. But it is a byproduct

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Speaker 1: of iron smelting. So it is. It exists out there

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Speaker 1: in the world, but it's just not in nature except

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Speaker 1: in this little meteorite. Okay, So now that we're all

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Speaker 1: thinking about metals, let's get into today's topic. Metals that

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Speaker 1: can be used for stuff. I don't know about you, Danta,

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Speaker 1: but I can't really see a way around metals demand.

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Speaker 1: It seems like we always need them. That may be

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Speaker 1: true in a high carbon or low carbon economy. There

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Speaker 1: is a need for metals cobalt, lithium, nickel for batteries,

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Speaker 1: rare earths for all kinds of electronics, steel for wind

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Speaker 1: turbines and solar panels, and the list goes on. Today,

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Speaker 1: we'll be talking with Sophie lou who leads b enufs

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Speaker 1: medals analysis and will focus on the battery metals. We'll

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Speaker 1: get into the supply and demand for metals used in

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Speaker 1: battery production and some of the very real challenges in

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Speaker 1: getting the stuff out of the ground. Our conversation is

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Speaker 1: based on a report titled two h nineteen Battery Metals Outlook,

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Speaker 1: Demand Realities. B NF users can get this report on

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Speaker 1: BNF dot com, the BNF mobile app, or on the

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg terminal at b NF go. Please note that BNF

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Speaker 1: does not provide investment or strategy advice, and you can

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Speaker 1: hear our full disclaimer at the end of the show.

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Speaker 1: I'm Dana Perkins and I'm Mark Taylor and you're listening

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Speaker 1: to Switch on the b NF podcast. Hi, Sophie, thank

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Speaker 1: you for joining us today. Good to be here. So

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Speaker 1: this market outlook is about the battery metals. What are

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Speaker 1: the main battery medals we should be worried about? Are

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Speaker 1: concerned with? Sure um? In our outlook we focus primarily

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Speaker 1: on lithium, cobalt and nickel um and when we do

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Speaker 1: the supply and demand forecast where these big three. We

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Speaker 1: do focus on the battery grade material that has produced

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Speaker 1: for these three commodities. We also do look a little

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Speaker 1: bit as some of the other medals that go into

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Speaker 1: lithium ion batteries, so this would include manganese, graphite, copper, aluminum, um,

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Speaker 1: but in general though the big three are lithium, cobalt,

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Speaker 1: and nickel. This report is half yearly, But how far

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Speaker 1: out do we look regarding the sub blind demand once

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Speaker 1: UM our demand forecast goes out to and then our

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Speaker 1: supply forecast goes out to at a D risk level,

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Speaker 1: we do have a view out to twenty thirty, but

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Speaker 1: we normally don't like to take a de wrist view

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Speaker 1: on each of the assets UH after because of the

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Speaker 1: lack of information. So it's mostly a short to medium

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Speaker 1: term outlook. It's basically from now until in the nearer

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Speaker 1: term what's going to be in short supply UH in

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Speaker 1: the near term, So right now, it doesn't look like

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Speaker 1: we have any major shortages pendent pending UM for any

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Speaker 1: of the battery materials, So lithium, whether it be hydroxide

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Speaker 1: or carbonate, are roughly in balance for twenty nine team

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Speaker 1: UM and then UH cobalt is actually a little bit oversupplied,

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Speaker 1: and then nickel, specifically nickel sulfate that goes into batteries

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Speaker 1: is currently, according to our views, still supplied. But you

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Speaker 1: go a little bit further out to about three and

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Speaker 1: that's really when we start experiencing some potential shortages in

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Speaker 1: um um, cobalt, and nickel, and then liftingum hydroxide UM

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Speaker 1: maybe even a little bit earlier because of the potential

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Speaker 1: bottleneck in conversion capacity. What's the reason for the shortage

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Speaker 1: and cobalt supply UM The shortage and cobalt supply really

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Speaker 1: has more to do with the fact that sort of

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Speaker 1: insecurity and instability in the Congo has impacted the DRC.

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Speaker 1: Excuse me, the Democratic Republic Congo has sort of impacted

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Speaker 1: UM the larger miners um development plans for new capacity

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Speaker 1: expansion inside of that market and has actually caused caused

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Speaker 1: them to furlough some existing capacity in preparation for sort

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Speaker 1: of reassessing because there they have to install the new

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Speaker 1: processing equipment as well as they have to sort of

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Speaker 1: reassess the impact of the new UH mining code that

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Speaker 1: came into effect last year in the Congo and how

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Speaker 1: that impacts the economics of the mining for cobalt in

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Speaker 1: that market, particularly since cobalt prices have come down quite

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Speaker 1: a bit. That's like, that's really the bottleneck going into

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Speaker 1: four but in the nearer nearer term, so even just

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Speaker 1: like in the next year or so, we could even

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Speaker 1: potentially experience a UM, a sudden shortfall in the cobalt market.

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Speaker 1: If anything UM these stabilizing happens in that specific country,

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Speaker 1: and UM that may cause or disrupt may cause disruptions

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Speaker 1: to the outflow of cobalt from that market. Uh no, no,

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Speaker 1: this is not trade. This is basically just the congo

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Speaker 1: UM experiencing political instability. Because so they just got a

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Speaker 1: new president that just came in January. There's a lot

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Speaker 1: of UM. There's still he has not fully consolidated his power.

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Speaker 1: There's still a lot of question as to whether or

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Speaker 1: not his incumbent retains a decent amount of control over

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Speaker 1: the market. In the last week or so, we've been

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Speaker 1: hearing news about you know, the UM, the national government

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Speaker 1: sending in troops to quote unquote protect UM, the mining

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Speaker 1: assets UM and to essentially push away artisanal miners, so

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Speaker 1: small scale miners from UM mining along the outskirts of

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Speaker 1: the big minds for Glencore and for chinamally and for

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Speaker 1: other companies. To clarifying questions, I think it just touched

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Speaker 1: on the first one is is DRC the main source

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Speaker 1: of co op in the world? And to who are

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Speaker 1: the majors that you talked about in that market? You

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Speaker 1: mentioned Glencore and and an others. Are there others? Yes?

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Speaker 1: Um so, over seventy of the cobalt resource that is

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Speaker 1: mined um is mine from from the congo. Um so

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Speaker 1: seventy percent of the refined sorry, the seventy percent of

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Speaker 1: the bind resource comes from the congo. And then within

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Speaker 1: the congo, the biggest market shareholders really are Chinnamali, Glencore,

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Speaker 1: Eurasian Resources Group UM y r G. I think they

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Speaker 1: changed their name now, and UM there's a few other

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Speaker 1: companies kind of throughout that also owned things like KEMAF

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Speaker 1: and others. UM. The Chinese companies, if you agree with them,

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Speaker 1: altogether own something close to a half if not more,

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Speaker 1: of the cobalt resource inside of the congo, and then

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Speaker 1: their dominance of the market share of cobalt increases significantly

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Speaker 1: when you then go to the next up, which is

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Speaker 1: the refinery. So cobal is exported from Congo and a

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Speaker 1: lot of it is exported back into China, where many

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Speaker 1: of the Chinese companies, particularly Hawaio China, Hawaio UM and

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Speaker 1: then Um Dean Chron and a few other companies, they

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Speaker 1: are some of the biggest refineries refiners of cobalt in

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Speaker 1: the world. While we're talking about China, I'm thinking, you know,

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Speaker 1: I've read here in your note that of the batteries

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Speaker 1: in the world are actually manufactured in China. And then

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Speaker 1: I think about the trade boards that are going on

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Speaker 1: right now between the US and China. Is that going

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Speaker 1: to pose a problem to the battery market in the US? UM,

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Speaker 1: I don't think so. So we looked at a little

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Speaker 1: bit at the the trade in critical minerals and materials

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Speaker 1: that go into the battery supply chain between the U

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Speaker 1: s and China, and actually the direct trade and raw

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Speaker 1: materials is relatively low. There are a few things that

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Speaker 1: might be potentially subject to higher tariffs, but um, at

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Speaker 1: the end of the day, there's actually not as much

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Speaker 1: trade in the material supply chain between the two countries.

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Speaker 1: Usually material that is mined in a third country moved

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Speaker 1: to China to be refined is then sold to a

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Speaker 1: third country that is then put into a battery component

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Speaker 1: which is then potentially sold to the U. S so

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Speaker 1: usually their trade partners in UM, Japan and possibly even

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Speaker 1: Europe where that happens the direct trade of batteries between

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Speaker 1: China and the US. I think one thing we can't

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Speaker 1: forget is that UM okay, so overt of the battery

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Speaker 1: supply chain is in China. That is true, right, and

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Speaker 1: the battery manufacturing capacity is also over in China, But

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Speaker 1: overt of battery demand will also happen in China, and

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Speaker 1: so much of the batteries that are being made in

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Speaker 1: China are likely to be deployed in and use applications

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Speaker 1: in China. I'm not saying that they might not export

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Speaker 1: some of it. Some of it might get exported, particularly

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Speaker 1: to their Asia partners UM, but they're not necessarily reliant

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Speaker 1: on the US to export their batteries. Changing tracks a

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Speaker 1: little bit, looking at copper, one of the things you

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Speaker 1: note is that recycling copper actually uses eight less energy

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Speaker 1: than mining it. Like, what what companies are actually doing this?

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Speaker 1: This is the big mining companies that are actually diversifying

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Speaker 1: or these complete new players and a potential opportunity for

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Speaker 1: a more fragmented market. They're not the big miners actually,

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Speaker 1: so the big miners usually UM don't specialize in the

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Speaker 1: recycling process. Oftentimes, the companies that are most involved in

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Speaker 1: recycling of metals, including copper, but also including many other things. Uh,

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Speaker 1: they're usually these specialized hydro metallurgical firms that are actually

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Speaker 1: doing the refighting. So again Chinese, Japanese and creating companies

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Speaker 1: and then also some companies in Europe are very specialized

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Speaker 1: in this in this process and they work more like

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Speaker 1: chemicals than they do UM in what we traditionally think

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Speaker 1: of as as metals mining UM. And these are the

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Speaker 1: companies that have the most opportunity to gain in a

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Speaker 1: world where increasingly recycling and scrap becomes a bigger part

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Speaker 1: of the overall supply chain. We understand that batteries are

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Speaker 1: increased singly relying upon nickel in their composition and decreasing

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Speaker 1: the amount of cobalt they're actually using. Is this driven

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Speaker 1: by human rights and and wanting to make that pivot

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Speaker 1: or is there some other reason that the battery compositions

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Speaker 1: are changing so dramatically. It's two different reasons basically, but

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Speaker 1: they're interrelated. So UM the desire or move towards higher

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Speaker 1: nickel catholic chemistries is mostly UM the need to drive

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Speaker 1: higher energy density in the battery packs, and higher nickel

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Speaker 1: catholic chemistries generally have been are are moving in that direction.

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Speaker 1: But the problem is UM in the traditional designs of

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Speaker 1: higher nickel catholic chemistries, you almost always need cobalt as

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Speaker 1: a part of that. So, for instance, um Tesla's n

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Speaker 1: CIA batteries require cobalt, and many of the battery makers

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Speaker 1: and the automakers don't. They're not comfortable with having that

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Speaker 1: much exposure to cobalt in their supply chains because cobalt

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Speaker 1: is risky, not just from a reputational issue of human rights,

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Speaker 1: but also just because UM. The political instability in the

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Speaker 1: market that it comes from does mean that there can

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Speaker 1: be occasional disruptions to the supply chain question on that.

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Speaker 1: I used to be in the industry, my cro industry,

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Speaker 1: I don't know what you'd call it, of geothermal, and

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Speaker 1: I had a friend in the industry who actually owned

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Speaker 1: a cobalt mine or cobalt outfit in Idaho, and it

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Speaker 1: was called US Cobalt. Yeah, then it bought out by

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Speaker 1: um first cobalt, Now I think have they? I think so, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I had a whole like Iron Creek or something it's called. Okay, Well,

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Speaker 1: my question on that is, I mean, is DRC the

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Speaker 1: only option for cobalt mining or are their domestic you know,

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Speaker 1: US supplies or supplies elsewhere that could be. It's a

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Speaker 1: really good question actually, so um, like I said our

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Speaker 1: earlier seventy of the mind, cobalt is mine in the DRC, right,

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Speaker 1: but is mine outside the call the d r C.

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Speaker 1: And right now the main sources of it are essentially

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Speaker 1: Cuba um Morocco. Yeah, Morocco um so bo Azer is

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Speaker 1: one of the oldest operating pure cobalt mines in the world. Um.

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Speaker 1: And then cobalt is also produced as a byproduct um

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Speaker 1: of nickel um uh production in some places in Southeast

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Speaker 1: Asia as well as Russia. So there is on Indonesia, okay, right,

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Speaker 1: So there are some cobalt production outside of the d

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Speaker 1: r C. And there's a lot of interest amongst junior

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Speaker 1: and mid sized miners to explore for pure cobalt plays

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Speaker 1: um outside of the DRC, because they believe there might

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Speaker 1: be a potential premium in terms of the supply chain,

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Speaker 1: supply chain premium value for non DRC cobalt, and we

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Speaker 1: see this plane out a little bit right. So you

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Speaker 1: have companies like um core UM promising that they're definitely

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Speaker 1: gonna have only non DRC cobalt and then therefore buying

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Speaker 1: cobalt only from Glencore's production mirror Murine in Australia as

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Speaker 1: well as possibly the RMAPU asset in Morocco UM and

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Speaker 1: then UM. But the problem is of every single one

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Speaker 1: of the major battery manufacturers or automakers like BMW all

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Speaker 1: want to buy non DRC cobalt, there's not in a

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Speaker 1: cobalt in the world to do that. UM. The problem

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Speaker 1: is UM cobalt prices right now are not quite high

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Speaker 1: enough to really sustain the independent discovery, exploration and development

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Speaker 1: of a standalone cobalt asset. You'd have to have a

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Speaker 1: really insanely high concentration to be able to do that.

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Speaker 1: In terms of the or grade UM and is that

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Speaker 1: what's unique about the cobalt and DRC UM. So the

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Speaker 1: couple in DRC is actually produced as a byproduc of

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Speaker 1: copper um, and so the DRC actually makes more money

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Speaker 1: from copper than it does from cobalt, but cobalt it

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Speaker 1: was really hot for a little while because or somewhere

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Speaker 1: like that, because the cobalt doesn't occur in high volumes

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Speaker 1: the way that in Peru. I actually, for those listening,

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Speaker 1: I'm just asking because Prue has a lot of copper. Yes,

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Speaker 1: Peru has a lot of copper, but cobalt doesn't always

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Speaker 1: just occur with copper. Um and it doesn't always it's

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Speaker 1: not so they're not inclusive or like that. It's not

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Speaker 1: a requirement to necessarily occur with copper. Sometimes occurs with nickel.

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Speaker 1: It's like all rock in the earth. It kind of

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Speaker 1: occurs in varying degrees. But um, the DRC does happen

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Speaker 1: to be one of the best deposits in the world

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Speaker 1: for both copper and cobalt in terms of the quality

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Speaker 1: of the intensity of the grade um. Yeah, so it's

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Speaker 1: it's very rare to develop a pure standalone cobalt asset. Um.

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Speaker 1: Most cobalt assets that are producing now are bioproducts of

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Speaker 1: either copper or nickel. Bo as you're in Morocco is

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Speaker 1: the own is. The only large scale, commercially producing pure

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Speaker 1: cobalt play in the world is it bright blue? It's yeah, cobalt,

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Speaker 1: I mean, is the mind bright blue? Oh No, I don't,

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Speaker 1: I don't, I don't know, I don't know. I have

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Speaker 1: to go back and look at it, look at it physically.

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Speaker 1: That given that Lee's lithium ion batteries are being used

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Speaker 1: in cars and power storage and then additionally for consumer

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Speaker 1: electronics that we all consume, looks like there's a lot

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Speaker 1: of stuff that is actually going to rely on these batteries.

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Speaker 1: Do you foresee the material prices, the metal prices going

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Speaker 1: way up as this demand looks like it just almost

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Speaker 1: has a limitless appetite. I think a lot of companies

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Speaker 1: that are investing into new assets are betting that the

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Speaker 1: prices of these commodities will come back up. We've seen

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Speaker 1: short term spikes, right, So, lithium went through a pretty

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Speaker 1: high period UM just a year ago. Cobalt also just

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Speaker 1: a year ago, it was quite high that came back

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Speaker 1: down about really like a ten months ago. UM Nicole

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Speaker 1: is experiencing a bit of a search now. Also on

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Speaker 1: the EV thesis, we're basically seeing this kind of like

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Speaker 1: cascade effect where basically every time somebody who likes EV

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Speaker 1: batteries discovers a new metal, they all pour their money

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Speaker 1: into it, and then it surges, and then it comes

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Speaker 1: back down when they realize once everybody has enough information

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Speaker 1: about supply and demand. So um, I feel like in

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Speaker 1: the metals industry, and this is the thing that everybody

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Speaker 1: sort of talks about. There's no such thing as a

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Speaker 1: true shortage. Like we didn't stop using bronze because we

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Speaker 1: ran out of bronze, right like, and this is the

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Speaker 1: same thing. We didn't stop using oil because you ran

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Speaker 1: out of oil. Um. There's no such thing as like

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Speaker 1: a true scarcity in the sense that there isn't enough

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Speaker 1: of the resource. It's always just about is the price

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Speaker 1: high enough to support the development of the next incremental

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Speaker 1: um tonnage that needs to come into the market to

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Speaker 1: support the future demand um. The market generally has proven

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Speaker 1: to be pretty efficient in terms of pricing signals to

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Speaker 1: the miners um to sort of to the resource level

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Speaker 1: to basically tell everybody you need to bring this much

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Speaker 1: more material up to the market to supply future demand.

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Speaker 1: In the lithium market. There's some debate about whether or

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Speaker 1: not this is actually true, being because a lot of

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Speaker 1: producers in the market are saying that the lithium price

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Speaker 1: is too low to support a lot of the new

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Speaker 1: UM material that needs to come into the market to

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Speaker 1: support the future demand UM. And our view is it

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Speaker 1: can it can vary like around ten thousand per ton,

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Speaker 1: I think is actually still a pretty god support price UM.

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Speaker 1: But it does. It does kind of UM raise the

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Speaker 1: question of there's a lot of assets that are in

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Speaker 1: the supply curve right now who have not finished fundraising

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Speaker 1: and UM their total costs when you include both the

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Speaker 1: mining as well as the conversion capacity costs could potentially

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Speaker 1: be is a little higher than what the current UM

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Speaker 1: prices UM, and so there's there's a question of like, well,

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Speaker 1: maybe the prices need to come back up in order

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Speaker 1: to support it. But regardless, Actually, we have a battery

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Speaker 1: metals UM commodity price sensitivity tool that we've built and

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Speaker 1: UM uh you know, our users can explore that tool

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Speaker 1: to sort of see what the impact would be. But

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Speaker 1: we looked at it and it was like, you know,

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Speaker 1: prices for lithium cobalt nickel can be pretty much double

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Speaker 1: UM and even even in some cases triple and the

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Speaker 1: overall impact on the overall cost of the battery pack

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Speaker 1: itself is you know, something to like three to five

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Speaker 1: percent maybe in terms of the fluctuation. Well, um, so

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Speaker 1: the so overall, the battery packs are also becoming more

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Speaker 1: efficient about how they use materials. So the energy density

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Speaker 1: is improving, but the size of the battery pack is

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Speaker 1: not increasing necessarily, So you're you're being able to find

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Speaker 1: new chemistries where you're exponentially increasing the energy density and

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Speaker 1: performance of the battery not necessarily having to also exponentially

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Speaker 1: increase the use of the usage of your battery, So

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Speaker 1: you're per per ton of material results of you know,

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Speaker 1: battery performance is also improving. Yeah, you're getting more out

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Speaker 1: of it. So what you're telling me is that there

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Speaker 1: is enough supply to go around, and there's enough of

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Speaker 1: this in the earth, but it's an issue of getting

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Speaker 1: it out. We've established with the issue of the congo

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Speaker 1: that you've got a lot of it in one location

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Speaker 1: that can prove to be a problem depending upon who's

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Speaker 1: sitting on top of it. Some of the other metals,

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Speaker 1: are they in difficult locations? Are some of them under

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Speaker 1: rainforests or under major cities and things that are going

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Speaker 1: to make it difficult. Potentially, are we going to reach

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Speaker 1: a peak metals for some of the metals that go

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Speaker 1: into the battery metal space. UM No, I don't think

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Speaker 1: so right now. There's there are definitely environmental damages that

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Speaker 1: might occur though, so this is actually a huge issue

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Speaker 1: for a lithium UM. So Lithium is primarily produced from

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Speaker 1: two types of deposits right now. Um either spodymin which

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Speaker 1: is hard rock lithium um and a lot of that

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Speaker 1: is coming from Australia, or Brian, which is like salt

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Speaker 1: water essentially um lithium the brine um is it we

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Speaker 1: used to be traditionally the majority of lithium produced UM

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Speaker 1: actually now shifting more towards boymin Um. Brian is primarily

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Speaker 1: located in the solars of Latin America on like the

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Speaker 1: high altitude between It's basically the lithium triangle between Argentina

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Speaker 1: Um Bolivia and Chili and UM. Those deserts, those like

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Speaker 1: high altitude desserts, have an extreme scarcity of water. Now

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Speaker 1: UM solars, these salty brines, these lithium brine deposits. The

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Speaker 1: producers they they obtain what they call pumping rights um

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Speaker 1: to pump the salt water from this brine deposit um

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Speaker 1: into surface level ponds which are then go through various

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Speaker 1: levels evaporation or to turn be turned into a high

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Speaker 1: enough lithium concentrate can then that can be shipped off

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Speaker 1: to their plant to be converted into a lithium chemical

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Speaker 1: used for batteries. So that's the process. UM. There's been

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Speaker 1: a lot of controversy over how much water being pumped

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Speaker 1: from these brines because even though the water in these

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Speaker 1: brines are not drinkable, so these are not humans drinking

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Speaker 1: water from these things, UM, they do still um have

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Speaker 1: potential relationship to the overall water table of the region. Now,

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Speaker 1: it's kind of there's a lot of I'm not going

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Speaker 1: to say specifically which way we lean. We're actually writing

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Speaker 1: an in depth research on this in second half of

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Speaker 1: the year to look at how the lithium industry can

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Speaker 1: reduce its water usage UM, but UM for for right now, though,

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Speaker 1: there's controversy around this issue and UM Basically, although the

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Speaker 1: lithium producers in the regions say that they're in compliance

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Speaker 1: with the pumping rights that they were granted to them

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Speaker 1: by the regulators of the region, activists in the regions

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Speaker 1: say that the regulators don't actually understand how this entire

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Speaker 1: ecosystem is interconnected, and believe that they have allocated pumping

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Speaker 1: rights that are probably too high and will eventually destroy UM,

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Speaker 1: these very delicate ecosystems. UM. There's some evidence to prove

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Speaker 1: that it may already be the case. Right, So the

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Speaker 1: UM salars are natural homes for flamingos and other endangered species,

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Speaker 1: and UM the population has diminished and and are suffering.

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Speaker 1: But there's debate as to whether or not the reason

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Speaker 1: that's causing the factors causing that are because of lithium

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Speaker 1: production specifically, or because UM water usage in the region

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Speaker 1: is much heavier from copper um. And then also tourism

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Speaker 1: actually uses a lot of water as well, So there's

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Speaker 1: a lot of debate right now in that region. So

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Speaker 1: this is an example of another environmental or resource level

405
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Speaker 1: limitation on the future growth of these material supply chains.

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Speaker 1: There was a bit of movement in two nine about

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Speaker 1: doing the same type of thing in the Salton Sea

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Speaker 1: area in California. Company called Symbol Mining as a startup

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Speaker 1: that I think they were ahead of their time price wise, right,

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Speaker 1: so the price just couldn't support lithium development at that time.

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Speaker 1: I heard there was kind of a kicking again last

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Speaker 1: year when the price kind of spiked, But is there

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Speaker 1: any more movement there? In the US, there's a lot

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Speaker 1: of interest, I think. So it's around Clayton Valley um

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Speaker 1: UH in Nevada. There's there's definitely some interest in developing

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Speaker 1: lithium assets inside of the US. There's also some look

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Speaker 1: at California. UM. I think there's one small asset I

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Speaker 1: gotta go back and look at the exact name that

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00:20:58,960 --> 00:21:03,040
Speaker 1: is producing some already, but not much. The majority of

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Speaker 1: lithium that's being looked at in North America is actually

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Speaker 1: in Canada. And then there's also a really interesting asset

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Speaker 1: that that's going to be Spot, Yes, and Na Masca

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Speaker 1: Lithium is looking at Spot. Mean, there's a few other

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Speaker 1: juniors that are looking at it there. Um. And then

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Speaker 1: in Mexico, Bakanara is looking at a clay acid, a

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Speaker 1: lithium clay acid that seems pretty interesting as well. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so I'd like to go back to the trade war

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Speaker 1: a little bit actually, so earlier I think, um there's

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Speaker 1: come there's oftentimes a misframing of the trade war question

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Speaker 1: when it comes to the battery supply chain. Everybody's sort

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Speaker 1: of frames. They're like, oh, I don't want to import

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00:21:34,040 --> 00:21:38,160
Speaker 1: batteries from China. UM. But it's not about importing the batteries.

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00:21:38,200 --> 00:21:41,600
Speaker 1: It's not even about importing physical product UM. And I

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00:21:41,680 --> 00:21:44,800
Speaker 1: think a lot of regulators need to think about it

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00:21:44,920 --> 00:21:48,240
Speaker 1: in this way, which is it's about security of the

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00:21:48,320 --> 00:21:52,520
Speaker 1: supply chain, and it's about whether or not a stakeholder

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00:21:52,600 --> 00:21:57,400
Speaker 1: like China, not necessarily only China, UM may exercise control

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00:21:57,520 --> 00:22:00,919
Speaker 1: over a large enough control over UM a certain part

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00:22:00,960 --> 00:22:04,280
Speaker 1: of the supply chain that it could become a bottleneck. So,

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00:22:04,600 --> 00:22:07,160
Speaker 1: for instance, I think a lot of the what informs

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00:22:07,160 --> 00:22:09,359
Speaker 1: the trade war now, especially when it comes to resources

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00:22:09,680 --> 00:22:13,080
Speaker 1: is UM. What happened to Japan with rare earths and

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00:22:13,280 --> 00:22:16,240
Speaker 1: China sort of quote unquote restricting the export of arth

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00:22:16,359 --> 00:22:18,640
Speaker 1: to Japan a few years. This was like ten years ago,

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00:22:19,080 --> 00:22:21,600
Speaker 1: and so Japan had a very hard lesson learned during

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00:22:21,640 --> 00:22:23,399
Speaker 1: that time period when price suspect and all of its

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00:22:23,440 --> 00:22:28,720
Speaker 1: producers faced legitimate bottlenecks either to their overall UM supply chain.

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00:22:29,680 --> 00:22:32,879
Speaker 1: And I think UM the US and many other UM

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00:22:33,119 --> 00:22:36,400
Speaker 1: cut regions in the world, including the EU, including Australia,

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00:22:36,400 --> 00:22:38,520
Speaker 1: including Canada, who are all moving in this direction of

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00:22:38,600 --> 00:22:42,919
Speaker 1: trying to UM, consolidate UH and improve their national strategies

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00:22:42,920 --> 00:22:45,399
Speaker 1: towards the battery supply chain. Are aware of this, and

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00:22:45,520 --> 00:22:49,159
Speaker 1: this is the security underlying security fear that drives a

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00:22:49,240 --> 00:22:53,680
Speaker 1: movement towards UM quote unquote trade war around battery supply chains.

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00:22:53,880 --> 00:22:55,520
Speaker 1: What's sad though, is that it's been framed in the

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00:22:55,600 --> 00:22:58,000
Speaker 1: context of a trade war when really it shouldn't be.

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00:22:58,160 --> 00:23:02,679
Speaker 1: It's not about restricting the flow of materials. It's about

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00:23:03,280 --> 00:23:06,679
Speaker 1: increasing the amount of the value add of that supply

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00:23:06,800 --> 00:23:09,600
Speaker 1: chain in your own market. And the reason why I

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00:23:09,920 --> 00:23:12,720
Speaker 1: I contact UM context that like that is there's actually

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00:23:12,720 --> 00:23:14,840
Speaker 1: a lot of private sector companies involved in the sector

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00:23:15,359 --> 00:23:19,200
Speaker 1: UM and just like their Japanese and creating counterparts, are

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00:23:19,280 --> 00:23:23,080
Speaker 1: happy to invest into Europe, into the US to build

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00:23:23,200 --> 00:23:26,280
Speaker 1: new assets. It's just like the solar industry UM. The

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00:23:26,359 --> 00:23:28,320
Speaker 1: solar industry, after they got tiribs put on them and

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00:23:28,320 --> 00:23:30,879
Speaker 1: they couldn't export PP modules to the US anymore, they

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00:23:30,920 --> 00:23:33,280
Speaker 1: went and build factories in other countries and then still

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00:23:33,359 --> 00:23:36,560
Speaker 1: we're exporting the PP modules UM and the same thing

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00:23:36,640 --> 00:23:39,200
Speaker 1: could happen to the battery industry. But we could save

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00:23:39,240 --> 00:23:41,440
Speaker 1: the battery industry a lot of pain that the solar

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00:23:41,480 --> 00:23:43,600
Speaker 1: industry had to go through, which was ten years of

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00:23:43,640 --> 00:23:45,680
Speaker 1: trade war before were not ten years maybe five years

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00:23:45,680 --> 00:23:47,720
Speaker 1: of trade war before everybody figured out that everybody was

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00:23:47,760 --> 00:23:49,600
Speaker 1: just hurting and that it was just you know, preventing

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00:23:49,640 --> 00:23:54,040
Speaker 1: people from from getting good product um and instead focusing

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00:23:54,119 --> 00:23:58,399
Speaker 1: on maybe diversifying the location and the ownership of the

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00:23:58,720 --> 00:24:00,879
Speaker 1: of the supply chain. It's not so, it's not just

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Speaker 1: about always focusing on the physical like where this product

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00:24:04,680 --> 00:24:06,360
Speaker 1: is coming from kind of thing. Does that make sense

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Speaker 1: at all? Yes, good, Sophie, thanks for joining us. Thanks

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Speaker 1: for having me, It was really great. Bloombergin e F

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00:24:14,440 --> 00:24:17,200
Speaker 1: is a service provided by Bloomberg Finance LP and its affiliates.

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00:24:17,359 --> 00:24:19,560
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00:24:19,640 --> 00:24:23,720
Speaker 1: construed as investment advice, investment recommendations, or a recommendation as

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00:24:23,800 --> 00:24:26,200
Speaker 1: to an investment or other strategy. Bloomberg an e F

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00:24:26,320 --> 00:24:28,960
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00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:32,600
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00:24:32,680 --> 00:24:35,639
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