Wasn't it only like 3 years or so ago there were saying there was not enough lithium in the world for all the batteries needed.🤔

Where will all those 8 year olds in the Congo find work? Sad

E.V. sales have tanked. People are not happy with them. Poor recharge infrastructure!long trip limits etc.

They had a long term offtake agreement with Tesla when the price was high, with guaranteed offtakes, but turned it down in hope for a better offer. Unfortunate decision.

ICE ICE baby !

EV car sales are turning bad. Public weaking up to negative side of cars etc

While there is a temporary glut in lithium stocks, the demand will increase. Lithium however is not a rare resource, the winners will be miners who can be the most efficient.

Hitting the bottom and mining stock prices going up ain't the same! It can take many, many years before the trend in stocks reverse!

Lithium prices are just back to pre-Pandemic prices. All mining companies should have been planning for this day. The other big threat to lithium is... sodium. The last expensive raw material in LFP cells is... lithium. Even at today's prices it's still very expensive compared to sodium. All we need is for someone to scale up a practical sodium-iron-phosphate or sodium-sulfur or sodium-other-cheap-material battery, and the lithium show will be pretty much over within a few years. Even if energy density is relatively low, stationary storage is currently using a lot of lithium.

Lithium prices are NOT cheap. They are just the same as in 2019 before the bubble. They should be even cheaper to make EV batteries competitive.

We can't have it both ways. We need cheap lithium for cheap EVs. The same happened with silicon between 2004 and 2008 when its price shot through the roof before crashing back down. That's right, that's just sand and some coal. Both completely abundant. Yet traders pumped up the price through the roof. Yet silicon is very cheap today and many companies make very nice profits making it. It's the same with lithium. It's more abundant than oil. Pretty much anywhere sodium (salt) exists, so does lithium. The companies that will survive are those that can mine and refine it cheaply while still making a profit.

A lot of money being spent in Cornwall (U.K.) on getting in to lithium mining. Appears there is plenty of it underground and at a decent percentage. Again the question is are they too late. By the time mining gets under way and the infrastructure Is in place there is a good possibility that battery technology will have moved on.

Good video. Sounds like AU needs its own processing plants to complete the process and a couple of Giga plants to make EV batteries. All it takes it money and customers in the EU and the US forget about China. It can be done with long term stablitiy too.

Salton Sea lithium is case in point for long term lower cost production, especially when paired with existing geothermal power plants already pulling hot brine up to surface and then sending the cold back down. All they need to do is extract the lithium along the way.

Interesting video Sam. Seems like Lithium isn't the scarce resource we were told is was.

Looks like EV reluctance and hesitancy has pushed back way up the supply chain. Good.

People have become sceptical about an EV future. That's one factor. The other is that lithium batteries as currently manufactured have long-term safety problems. Let the Chinese market absorb the lithium overstock while better batteries are designed.

Cheapest spodumene producer is Marula Mining. Operations in South Africa and listed in London. Backed by South Africa's self made billionaire. It will be producing spodumene, Manganese, Cooper Cement and graphite sales this year with a first dividend year end. All for under £30m market cap. It will multi bag this year.

Haven’t massive amounts of Lithium been found in Norway, South America, and the USA, thereby driving prices down for decades to come?

Thanks so much Sam

Wow your a stock market expert . my liuthum stock is up 522 % from when I brought it

EV’s are dead. Stop beating a dead horse…

Supply and demand … There now is an abundance of supply across the world, so the price is going to stay low until there is an increase in demand again - repeating the cycle. I’m a mining engineer, it’s what naturally happens

Copper may be a better investment right now...we still need wires for everything, including EVs. But I have no idea which copper mining company to invest in or how to invest in copper futures.

I would Stay Away.... recent advancements are making Lithium batteries Obsolete

Didn't Musk say there was a lithium shortage a few years ago and Tesla would buy every ton that was produced? He also said he wasn't worried about copper because they were changing to 48v low volt system. Well copper is at all time highs and lithium at lows. Copper is still the way to play a renewable energy future

Prices will briefly go up again before coming down yet again once the new mining sites in the US come online. They have many years of supply and are cheap to extract. Plus, there are reports of progress on the processes and costs of refinement. It'll still get cheaper, IMHO.

Tough call, battery tech is changing all the time and if someone develops a cheaper/better alternative to lithium them those shares will become worthless. I suggest that you don't buy shares to trade, but as a long term investment.

Like many commodities there is a great deal more lithium then is thought. Rock lithium deposits are not able to compete with Brine and Clay lithium deposits which are much more economical to extract and process.. Something like fracking is possible when tapping soluble lithium deposits and hard rock processing will not be able to compete economically with these methods.. Lithium abundancy is bad news for some mining operations and scarcity benefiting commodity traders but good news for humanity as it means we are not going to be a Lithium bottle neck unless humanity grows to hundreds of billions but by then we will probable have discover something much better.

I will stick to my modified 1961 Mercury Comet .It gets 25 MPG highway.

The collapse of the "lithium industry" is inevitable, with the popularity of substitute materials such as LFP which only uses a small amount of lithium and also sodium batteries which are much cheaper and more environmentally friendly, the lithium industry will lose its market.

The bottleneck is in refining as opposed to mining lithium. I don't see prices getting back to where they were.

Lithium is over supplied, which is a good thing! We need more lithium, but companies will need to merge and pace their supply. My daughter and son both work in the rare earth mining industry of silver and gold, and they’re facing the same problem: over supply and lowering costs.

Lithium Carbonate peaked at CNY 600,000 in Nov of 2022 has dropped to 97,000 and has recently ticked up in the last month to 115,500.

I don't invest in this sort of thing, but lithium demand is still rising. EV batteries and other batteries continue to be a growth industry, and lithium is still a critical battery material despite emerging alternatives like sodium. If I were a betting man, I'd bet on a higher lithium price a year or two in the future, but lithium production must come down first. Production will eventually rise again but not before currently marginal producers are out of business. That's how capitalism works. Supply balances demand not because investors are always so brilliant but because high prices attract more investment and lower prices drive marginal production out of the market. The brilliant investor theory is basically the central planning theory. Booms and busts are not market failures. They're markets working.

My understanding is that there is NOT a shortage of lithium but rather a lack of processing of it (mainly all in China) and that’s why Tesla is building a lithium processing plant in the US. Also battery technology is rapidly evolving along with all related technology and lithium might not be a critical component in the long term.

Why when I minimize the KZfaq app when I'm watching one of your videos I can keep watching your video like if I had KZfaq premium??? (K don't have premium and It doesn't happen with any other videos!!!)

We all know what a great stock picker you are..byd, Tesla? Short Toyota? You are what we call cramner indicator.

Musk for a time was trying to talk folks into starting Li mining co's. he didn't do it himself - that's all you need to know

seem like a good opportunity to buy the deep. I start a small position in LAC, ALTM, and SQM

With lower lithium prices should expect continued discounting in not only EVs but also mass storage solutions. Quite a few players in the mass storage space. Interesting to watch the evolution in mass storage, EVs and Hybrids.

This what happens when governments mandate huge changes in the economy without a proper business case and without taking into account human behaviour which is to protect themselves from harm which in this case is higher costs. EV’s insurance premiums are much much higher than ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicles, but more importantly who will be paying the ROAD TAXES after there are no more ICE vehicles on the road?

Battery technologies are constantly changing... Lithium is being phased out.

What do you mean it cant go down from here ,it could still go to 0.00 hahahaha

Lithium is not as scarce as we think. Its popping up everywhere

They thought everyone was going to buy EVs and demand was going to be super high but I guess the demand isn't high enough to keep the prices up

Most of us knew the sky high prices were not sustainable! Not sure if lithium and related stock prices will rebound significantly, with all the supply and legacy Auto quitting EV production lithium will take a long time to rebound and certainly won't go back to the crazy level. In fact it has room to go lower using pre-pandamic prices as baseline.

China Belt and Roads project is building mines in Indonesia and Africa without the regulations for Australian mining companies. Look at the volume of lithium being mined globally to see if production has just moved away from Australia.

I bought Lake Resources lithium stock on the ASX for 6c about 3 years ago. It got over $2 briefly and is now back at 10c. I took profit and playing with house money on this one.

List Lithium mining companies quoting their AISC and jurisdiction - it soon becomes clear where you should be investing. Note Chinese miners do not include waste management costs in their AISC and not recognised as being "Green" so are not preferred suppliers. Atlantic Lithium #A11 #ALL have a compelling investment case going forward with projected AISC of US$675/t.

It’s not unusual for mining companies to put their operations into maintenance mode if the value of their product falls below a predetermined level. They sit it out and wait until the stockpiles are exhausted and there’s a shortage, then they fire up again but sell at a hugely increased price. These reductions in battery costs due to cheap lithium are only temporary, watch what happens down the track. Batteries are always going to be the Achilles heel of EVs, just like any other battery powered appliance.

Lithium was developed as it allows power to small expensive electronic devices like mobile phones. They got smaller and powered up for longer. Then they figured Lithium batteries could make cars go very much faster. Now, we’ve figured cars don’t need to go that fast. So cheaper metal ions can be used to power large electric vehicles. We don’t need Lithium as the main element in electric vehicles. Basic chemistry, have a look at an activity table.

Nice video, thank you ❤

Strategically, if we look at the demand it’s credible that Sodium Ion takes over a large chunk of the market, and for static power (renewables time shifting grid operations, home solar / backup power, ships etc) Li-Ion seems so ridiculous now. Lithium in lighter and premium vehicles seems like a long term play, so we will see how all that shakes out. But it’s not a lock on the long term market like it looked 5 years ago.

All depends on if heavy vehicles go electric with current battery technology. As for passenger vehicles I think demand will depend on cost of living pressures.

The very possibility of sodium being a viable alternative will mean that lithium would be completely wiped out of the market. As soon as sodium gets any traction, market is gone. Even at the same price as rock salt, lithium would probably struggle because of its many limitations.

*The people working with raw Lithium Carbonate must be the most chill people on the planet.* *Someone should do a study on them.*

Lithium mines are worse for the environment than oil.

Some of them water evaporation farm & drain the water out of the ground to evaporate the lithium out of it. They end up stopped because they drain the aquifer.

I nearly invested in ARU , it went to nearly 70 cents per share, now it's struggling at about 12 cents!

Elon musk said that the big problem is there is not enough pocessing plants and there is no shortage of minerals.

China owned more then 50% of EV market , and china hv their own Litium supply chain , as usual , china has its way to produce cheaper litium and products , therefore its not surprise others litium companies unable to compete with china .

Sodium Ion batteries are now on the market, cheaper than lithium because (sodium is everywhere in nature), not the same VA/h but they do the job, i got few to test 18650 and 26700 format and they work, they do not use the same lithium batteries BMS but can use same chargers, the only downside i find is that must be charged more often but they seem to endure more charging cycles and do not have issues of cold or heat to operate.

Nice little bit of info, like only someone like you can pick out in a timely way... very nice Viking... thanks for the tip, I'm looking at it now... it makes sense... Tinto is literally one of those companies (too big to fail)

the problem with Lithium isn't it's availability at this time, it's the cost of refinement as well as New Battery technologies being discovered on a regular basis, Sodium Batteries, Polymer Batteries, etc. Lithium could be dropped like a bad joke at a party if a much better battery technology appears in the next 5 years. Then there's my thinking that Batteries are just stop gap measures until the world puts the effort into producing Smaller and Micro modular Reactors, utilising Thorium or other safe technologies.

Lithium prices are plummeting due to supply and demand. As EV sales continue to drop around world due to the lack of consumer demand lithium prices will follow this trend.

This is the problem when people speculate. This is just the price two or three years ago. When people are too greedy, they will have to take the risk.

Do like the oil industry, mine it, store it, and wait for the price to go up to sell it.

Looking at lithium prices, i think it has bottomed to pre covid levels. Demand is still there making huge bayteries for the power companies.

With several car manufacturers dropping or sharply curtailing EV production, electric companies adding costs to solar power owners (while getting laws promoting folks from going off the grid), interest rates sky high, and a global recession politicians deny but cannot hide, coupled to new major finds in Norway and USA, the price slump will last for a couple more years. By then the Ambri battery may be ready to grow into the higher- capacity side of this market. Yes it will come back - but probably at a slower rate than some companies can handle.

Great job Sam. I appreciate the good job you do. I am wondering about the size of your staff. How many people does it take to produce so much news?

I think not, Lithium is just one of the most common materials in the world. It's like buying a lot of sand because you need sand to make glass and solar panels contain glass and more and more solar panels are made.

It just did hit the bottom.

IMHO it’s time to start investing in oil, gas, coal and Nuclear.

Don't call the bottom, until you see which way Sodium is going.

This last winter in the U.S. showed EVs become side of the road paperweights in cold temperatures as EV battery charges run low and EV batteries cannot be recharged at charging stations. EVs still need technology breakthroughs to become reliable and viable. Toyota and Hyundai report HYBRID 2024 sales are way up. EV 2024 sales from all manufacturers are way down.

There has been talk about batteries without Lithium, such as sodium. Don't know if any of them will pan out.

The difference between a glut and a supply shortage is worked out on a 1 percent surplus. The Chinese have manipulated theithium price.

Simple cycle, reserves grew as miners expected higher prices. Low prices halt mines, reserves dropping prices already rising. EV uptake imminent, Tesla Model 2 pending

i would say yes to invest , especially if one car manufacturer were to invest in a mining company. you need a solid foundation to weather the storm this time could be a great time to buy lithium at the bottom as it will rebound and set a new level

no way!!! elon keeps saying a lithium mine is better than tesla stock or bitcoin.

Refining capacity is limited and now there is a supply glut.

I heard that Sodium-Ion is the more promising future for EV. Cheaper and safer.

Perhaps somebody overestimated the luxury vehicle demand .Maybe there was some thought that petroleum prices would lose their subsidies and "pump' prices would begin to reflect the true costs of petro fuels ?

It’s stupid geopolitical issues & Australia can’t process lithium !!!

Hard rock mining for lithium costs 50% more than lithium from salt flat brine and is even less competitive than filtering lithium from brine. Filtering lithium from brine is the future of lithium production.

Wait, what?? I thought lithium was the new gold?!? 😂

If you can't show a path to profitability the stock will go to zero. Kind of like when every farmer plants a whole lot of the same crop, you have good weather a bumper crop, and the stuff can't sell for much.You have to analyze the debt and cash flow to see if there is a possible plan to keep the company alive, given 3 years at today's price... if you line up all the lithium sources(mines, companies) sort them by the quality of the ore, only the cheapest to extract will survive.

When solid state batteries come on line that will have a large impact on the lithium market.

So much for all of the people who were predicting that EVs would fail because "there's not enough lithium".

Seems like there is a boom in new battery tech with no reason to think lithium will come out on top at all. Same goes for rare earth magnets with things like iron nitride in the offing. Anyone remember NiCads?

Non Lithium alternatives represent the bulk of battery storage technologies future. Give it 5 more years and you will see. So far EVs make up less than 5% of road vehicles. There's still another 95% of vehicles to be replaced over the long term.

Quote from EV (electric viking - not the car): ...the company has mined too much lithium, and so it is stockpiling it because they don't want to sell it at cheap prices... So actually, the issue is simply down to human greed and the company prioritising profit over everything else (even it's own survival), is it not???

Probably a good bet on Lithium companies. the year 1991, when Sony first got rechargeable Li batteries put into devices. It's been well over 30 years to get these batteries made cheap enough for the common device. Multi nations, multi companies. Even if Sodium Ion batteries or Solid-state batteries get manufacturing traction on device sold to consumers, it probably take at least 20 years from today. So Lithium will hold steady for at least 20 years.

Funny, says he can't call the bottom for fear of being fined, then calls the bottom. Unusual Viking move.

It's a tug of war between EV's and the infrastructure to recharge the batteries. We're short on future electricity capacity because we haven't kept up on building nuclear power plants.

If and when solid state batteries are viable then I think lithium will still be in demand, but I do not think it will increase in price. If we develop an energy containment system that is equivalent and does not need lithium then it could go down .

Technology evolves and changes all the time. It is always risky to associate oneself with technology-based industry or business. What has happened to Kodak, Fujifilm, Nokia, Alcatel and other American, European and Japanese tech based companies reminds us of vulnerability of tech based industry to ever changing technological landscape.

I got Albermarle early in 2023 at ~$180 and it's lost 50% of it's value. New battery tech (solid state, Sodium etc) and Hydrogen may displace Lithium.

Wow. I’m such an idiot. I thought stock prices were tied to demand.