Lithium Landscape – Analyst Provides a ‘Who’s Who’ in Sector, Looks at 30+ Industry Players

Chemicals 
Lithium Landscape; Who’s Who in Lithium?
• We introduce our inaugural roster of global lithium players. In this month’s edition of Lithium Landscape, we publish in the appendix our initial version of Who’s Who in Lithium (WWIL), a digest of 30+ industry players divided into four categories: (1) incumbent “majors”, including global market leaders, such as Albemarle Corporation, FMC Corporation, Sichuan Tianqi, and SQM; (2) lithium “miners” (with an “e”) or those companies for which we project commercial production by 2022E, (3) “juniors” with early-stage ambitions to enter the lithium market over the next decade; and (4) a few “wild cards”, which are well capitalized global companies with potential to enter the market, either organically and/or via acquisition. Our list is large, but not completely comprehensive, since there are many more juniors than we are able to include at this time. Nevertheless, we have taken pains to document basic information, such as company name, address, ticker symbol, stock exchange, country of operation, resource type, and management. We have also provided a brief description of each company as well as a stock chart, where applicable. We intend to update WWIL periodically as the market evolves and players emerge, grow, consolidate, or otherwise go by the wayside. Please click here if you would like to receive WWIL in excel form.
• New energy vehicle sales growth improves in the US market. New energy vehicle sales growth in the US market accelerated in February following the seasonally slower month of January. In total, domestic electric vehicle sales increased 36% y-y, driven by a 43% increase in battery electric vehicles and a 30% increase in plug-in hybrid sales. The biggest contributors to the y-y growth appear to be…
• Supply side headlines picked up a bit in March following a slower February, particularly as it relates to the junior “miners.” We are encouraged that POSCO looks to be stepping further into the market by signing a strategic offtake agreement with Pilbara as well as announcing its intention to build a 30KTPA hydroxide plant. Increased participation by well capitalized companies such as POSCO will likely de-risk some of the project development concerns present at smaller juniors. On that end…
• Global lithium carbonate prices move off January highs, while lithium hydroxide ticks higher. We judge that global average contract lithium carbonate (LC) prices for February declined by 1.5% from January 2018 levels, bringing the price to $16,313/mt. That said, prices remain 2% higher than December 2017 levels and are up 36% from 1 January, 2017. Under the hood, we see that prices in South America trended flat sequentially and remain at highs. However, prices declined ~2% across North America, Europe, and China. Chinese prices have now declined 6% from October 2017 highs, though at $20,250 per metric ton, prices in the domestic Chinese market remain well above the other global benchmarks. Global average lithium hydroxide (LiOH) prices were…
• Lithium stocks continue to languish. As depicted in Figure 4, lithium stocks have continued to languish over both the last month and year-to-date as supply concerns remain front of mind for investors. Pilbara Minerals was able to rally modestly over the past 30 days as news of a strategic offtake and downstream investment with POSCO provided some fodder for bulls there. With Tawana starting-up its new Australian spodumene mine and Altura and Pilbara likely to follow shortly thereafter, we suspect supply concerns may remain an overhang in coming months.
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