The War Over Strategic Battery Metals Is Set To Send Global...

The War Over Strategic Battery Metals Is Set To Send Global Lithium Prices Soaring
There’s a green energy revolution underway, and the demand for high capacity batteries is putting enormous pressure on the world’s lithium producers.

In 2008 - global demand was less than 100,000 tons a year. Today it’s up over 230,000 tons — and forecast for 700,000 tons annually by 2025.

That’s why lithium prices have rocketed up from $5,000 to over $20,000 per ton.

Why is demand growing so quickly? Electric Vehicles.

The Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) 70kWh Model S battery pack contains 63Kg of lithium, equivalent to the amount of lithium in 10,000 cellphones.

It took 20 years to sell the first million EVs. The second million took only 18 months. And industry insiders expect sales to explode in the very near term.

Global electric car production is expected to increase more than thirtyfold by 2030, hitting 24.4 million in annual vehicle sales - up from under 1 million today.

Demand from China could be even greater.
Beijing has mandated that by 2020, there be at least 220,000 electric buses in the public transit system in its major cities.

The current frontrunner for building those buses is BYD. The batteries of this bus contain about 241 kilograms of lithium.

That’s over 53 million kilograms of lithium required between now and 2020 to put these electric-powered buses on the road.

There’s just one enormous problem facing the industry.

We don’t have enough lithium production to go around.
"We expect lithium demand growth of 16 percent annually over the next decade, faster than any major commodity over the past century," says Morningstar analyst David Wang.
They’re forecasting a 100,000 ton annual shortfall in supply by 2025.
For the world’s two economic superpowers - that’s a big problem.