In the current inflationary environment, it should surprise nobody that lithium is priced in the stratosphere. E Source expects that the roller coaster is about to start now: with lithium expected to dip and rise in the coming years as supply matches and then is overwhelmed with demand. This talk will explore E Source's Li ion demand forecasts and corresponding supply buildout expectations.

Governments around the world are poised to launch regulations to ensure the sustainability of electric vehicle batteries. Although daunting to battery manufacturers and EV OEMs, blockchain-based technology can ease compliance from mine to manufacturing and throughout the battery life.

Auto Supply Chain & Technology’s Battery team in S&P Global Mobility will share its new proprietary data and insights on supply/demand dynamics of lithium, cobalt, nickel and manganese in light passenger vehicles. Also, the mid to long-term impact from raw material price hikes in battery technology evolution and electric vehicle demand will also be discussed.

As demand for battery metals prices continue to be revised upwards, talk of a new commodity super cycle gets louder by the day. Is it really any different this time or are on we the cusp of something new? This presentation is a cautionary tale and an analysis of what is the same and what is different relative to cycles of the past. Additionally, the presentation will look at the battery metals cycle through a political, geoeconomic, and socioeconomic lens to offer a sustainable path forward.  Audentis fortuna adiuvat.

FREYR is planning to set up Giga Factory up to 50GWh by 2030. There might be still time, but we need to prepare our battery value chain in the US. It seems that the battery market has started to grow, but we feel still there are lacking suppliers/materials in the US. In this talk, I would like to introduce how we see battery value chain in the US and hot we are going to create it.

New battery raw materials mines are developed in the US and around the world, supported by solid levels of investments, attracted by high metals prices and legislative support such as Critical Minerals Independence Act. However, before ending up in the lithium-ion’s battery cathode, raw materials need to be processed into chemicals. In this presentation we will look at the current state of battery raw materials processing, including capacities, geographical distribution, and supply & demand landscape, with 10 years forecast period. We will examine whether the US needs its own battery materials processing capacities to minimize CO2 emissions, cell costs and security of supplies and what it will take to build them – in terms of investment and time needed. We will also assess risk factors affecting the roadmap to the US battery chemicals self-sufficiency.

NAATBatt International supported NREL to develop a database of companies supplying goods, equipment, and services that manufacture or reuse/recycle battery packs and cells in North America. The purpose was to identify strengths and gaps so private-government partnerships could formulate strategies to have a competitive LIB supply chain. NREL published the first version of this database. The database includes companies doing business in materials, cells, packs, and end-of-life management with a manufacturing facility in North America. In addition, companies engaged in LIB battery modeling, distribution, service and repair, and R&D are also included. Database summaries will be shared.

Consumers, producers, and governments in North America and Western Europe are beginning to address critical vulnerabilities in their LIB supply chains, but where will gaps in the supply chain remain, and is it feasible that either region will achieve self-sufficiency? This presentation will quantify the size of gaps in the supply chain from mine to EV, and how they might be addressed, for each of nickel, cobalt, lithium and manganese.

The transport electrification, wider use of renewable energy and expansion of energy storage push nickel demand higher. This presentation will focus on nickel demand projections by industry and potential additional supply sources, including an update on Indonesian projects and possible constraints with the NPI to nickel sulphate conversion plans. The nickel incentive price required to bring additional metal units to the market will be also examined.

Euro Manganese is a battery materials company focused on becoming a leading, competitive, and environmentally superior producer of high-purity manganese for the electric vehicle (EV) industry. The Chvaletice Manganese Project in the Czech Republic is a unique waste-to-value recycling and remediation opportunity involving reprocessing old tailings. It is the only sizeable resource of manganese in the EU, positioning the company to provide critical raw materials to a circular, low-carbon economy.

Pure Lithium enables the mass adoption of lithium metal rechargeable batteries (LMBs) by getting lithium from the ground into a battery as quickly, sustainably, and inexpensively as possible. It is the first company to produce a battery-ready pure lithium-metal electrode that can be made from a variety of inexpensive, readily available feedstocks — from salts to metal. By taking a systems-level approach to lithium-metal production, Pure Lithium's ground-to-battery process drastically reduces costs and supply chain limitations, thus enabling the commercialization of safer, longer-range, faster-charging EV batteries.

While the raw materials, which will be needed to help decarbonize our planet, are critical to achieve the objectives set by the Paris Agreement, an important stakeholder interest is that these raw materials should be mined sustainably. An update on SQM's lithium expansions globally and sustainable development plan towards carbon and water neutral lithium production at Salar de Atacama in Chile will be provided. Life cycle assessment (LCA) of brine-based lithium is a key tool to reduce footprint going forward. The footprint of Argonne's lithium LCA will be presented at cell level, as well as the latest figures on global lithium demand.

Outlook on demand-supply balance for Li, Ni, Co, Mn and graphite; alternative feedstock and processing routes; comparing costs and CO2 emission; strategies to secure critically raw materials adopted by major players; framework for holistic evaluation of raw material strategies.

Solving the challenges of raw material demand presented by the growing global EV market will involve key considerations including sustainability and geopolitical risk. Production capability to accept a variety of raw materials (salts/metal/refining feed) provides important sourcing flexibility. This sourcing must be led by informed environmental and societal impacts that can vary widely between sources. Recycled metal sources will provide increasing value in combination with near-term reliance on primary sources.

The role that batteries play in the fight against climate change puts Chile in front of a great challenge: how to obtain lithium without devastating the salt flats of Atacama, the driest desert in the world, where more than half of the reserves of the mineral essential for the manufacture of batteries for the consumer electronics and electric vehicles industries is found. As more and more lithium-ion batteries are needed to power electric vehicles — a crucial step in the global decarbonization process — producers are focusing their efforts on the challenge of ensuring that the lithium production processes are as sustainable as possible, as production is scaled to meet this new demand. The growing importance of batteries has made lithium sustainability a key priority for these companies.

This topic is important to OEMs to inform them about the dynamics of the raw materials of the Li-ion batteries and how the supply chain will look in the next 5-10 years. It can also give them an idea about the required investments needed to ensure a stable supply-demand curve.