Sehr salopp ausgedrückt:
I’d like to think it’s a statement of fact, that a hard rock operation is more like a
factory than a brine operation. It’s just more certainty, it’s a known quantity what you’re
taking out of the ground, what you’re processing, and ultimately what you’re delivering
to a ship. Whereas, the brine world is a bit like farming. You’re somewhat subject to
the vagaries of the weather, and that’s what’ll determine your production rates and
output. So I feel like the certainty of outcome that comes from a hardrock operation has
to have some inherent value, especially when you’re talking about something as precise
as ultimately what it is to construct a battery and then of course a car. So I feel like that
level of certainty has to be valued over time.
Der vielleicht interessanteste Seitenblick:
Cobalt is always probably going to be problematic, and again that forces people
down a path where they try and avoid it. So I’m not convinced that cobalt itself, is a
long term thematic in the li-ion battery story. I think it’s got it’s day in the sun, and it
might yet have more, but I think it’s going to be fluky because of the way that market
works. So I’m not convinced that from an equity investment point of view, it makes a
whole lot of sense.
And the other one, manganese, is relatively easy to source. So out of all that, it
probably still paints a picture that lithium is the place for those that are in
the longer term supply growth story, and the orders of magnitude that the market
has to grow to satisfy the underlying demand. Hopefully that gives you some
confidence that you are on to the right subset of the story!