U.S. Lithium Demand to Skyrocket
Us lithium demand is said to skyrocket by a staggering 500% by 2030. Now, this is coming from fast markets who provide analysis of what’s going on.
Really, this gives you an idea of some of the places that possibly you could invest in, but also of the expected demand for electric cars over the next six years.
Now, although the media is saying all this stuff, analysts, and I’m talking about analysts who have real no connection to EBS or to wanting to deploy them, they’re saying, Well, it’s coming and there’s no avoiding it.
Insights from Fastmarkets
Fastmarkets, an industry-leading cross-commodity price-reporting agency, launched a region-specific lithium price assessment for Western markets to increase price transparency.
Fastmarkets forecast a massive growth in demand for lithium in the United States of exactly 487%, to 412,000 tons of lithium carbonate equivalent by 2030.
Now, keep in mind, this demand is expected to be mostly met, this increase, by some incredible new discoveries in the United States.
Now, one of those is literally a lithium gold mine. Fastmarkets was the first price-reporting agency to launch spot, battery-grade, and technical-grade lithium hydroxide and carbonate price assessments for the US and Europe.
Pricing histories for these markets is available back to 2017.
Advances in Battery Technology
Now, obviously, fast markets, they’ve been pricing markets for over 60 years and as you would know, lithium prices have hit massive lows, not historical lows, but I mean, lithium prices have dropped through the flow over the past 12 months.
That has meant that the cost of lithium batteries has come down by nearly 50% over the last 12 months.
Making EVs, the ability to produce EVs, many analysts are saying it’s already a similar cost to produce an electric car as it is to produce an internal combustion engine car.
Then we got people like Tony Sievers saying, You know what? It’s going to be cheaper by 2026 to make an EV than a gasoline-powered car. Other analysts are confirming that this is actually true.
The battery raw materials market has changed significantly since 2017 with supply and demand factors playing out very differently in North America, Europe, and Asia.
Previously, fast markets provided price assessments for the US and Europe. These price assessments are changing because the market has changed so much.
Part of that is because of the, well, demand for EVs, but also the US Inflation Reduction Act.
Long-Term Projections and Market Dynamics
Now, if you’re wondering, what will lithium demand be like even further into the future, say 2050? Well, the IEA the UN Trade and Development, or UNCTAD.
Together, they project that lithium demand will rise by more than 1,500% between now and 2050.
What this means is that for basically the world to hit its 2030 emissions targets, the mining industry will need an additional 70 new mines.
Now, Statista is forecasting the global demand for lithium worldwide in 2030 will surpass 2.4 million metric tons of lithium carbonate, doubling the demand forecast for 2025.
Leading this surge, of course, will be increases in battery EVs, and also energy storage.
Now, other experts are also extremely bullish. Shanghai metals markets, they say, key trends in lithium prices, a comprehensive analysis.
They reported that the metal is expected to see a huge surge in demand, projecting more than 2.4 million tons of lithium carbonate needed by 2030.
But they say that between 2030 and 2035, things are really going to blow up. The prediction is to go from 2.4 million tons in in 2030, and then 3.8 million tons in 2035.
So what does that mean? Well, the investment opportunities in lithium stocks, potentially even Australian mining lithium stocks, are very promising.
Future Demand and Market Expansion
Experts predict a lithium price recovery averaging around US$45,000 per metric ton, aligning with the expected demand surge.
So could this happen? Could this change? Well, could we see this record numbers for lithium demand in the United States? Will it really increase by what these experts are saying, which is 500 % by 2030? Well, keep in mind, only 8% of all cars currently sold in the United States are fully electric.
But battery technology has come a mile, a lot of the batteries being used in these EVs you guys are buying in the United States, they’re old technology.
It’s good, but it’s a generation old. With these newer generations of batteries, which are going to be cheaper and have higher energy density, you’re going to see EV prices come down more.
This will lead to more adoption, more and more adoption, more and more fast charges being deployed, more and more people are going to buy EVs.
We’re going to hit that point where EVs will become the mainstream. A lot of experts say that by 2030, more than 50% of all cars sold in the United States will be electric.
But I think it’ll be more like 65% to 75%. If that does happen, then These figures of 500% could be an understatement.
We could be looking at numbers that are more like 600 to 800%.
But what does this mean, though, for EV prices? Well, EV prices are basically likely to come down by around 30 to 40% from many expert analysts over the next five years, making them cheaper than internal combustion.