Major mining companies, including the BHP Group and Glencore Plc, are finally firmly convinced of the EV battery revolution, but have not yet agreed on which metals are better in the long term.
BHP has revived nickel production in Western Australia, Glencore is focusing on cobalt and copper, Rio Tinto Group is trying to enter the lithium market, and Anglo American Plc is exploring the prospects for using platinum and palladium in future battery technology.
BHP, the world's largest mining company, decided to retain its Nickel West division this year to capitalize on projected growth in lithium-ion batteries and a shortage of high-quality nickel supplies. Beginning in Q2 2020, the Nickel West nickel plant near Perth will begin production of bright turquoise nickel sulfate, a premium raw material for the battery supply chain.
Glencore Plc predicts that the deployment of more than 140 million electric vehicles by 2030 will require 3 million tons more copper per year, 1.3 million tons of nickel and about 263,000 tons of cobalt. By 2040, nearly 60% of new car sales and about a third of cars on the road will be electric, BloombergNEF said in a May report.
Meanwhile, battery base metal prices are still volatile and fell sharply last year after several years of significant growth, mainly due to too rapid growth in production volumes, as well as concerns about a slowdown in the world's largest Chinese market. electric vehicles.
Between mid-2015 and last May, lithium prices tripled on fears of a shortage of this material, and then fell by more than a third as new mines were launched. Cobalt prices in London quadrupled in the two years to March 2018 and then fell by almost three quarters.
