E33: Time Travelers: The Future is Now

This episode, “Time Travelers: The Future is Now” puts “global” in the Global Lithium Podcast. Joe is one day ahead; recording from Tokyo, the site of Battery Japan, on Saturday while Emily who is at...

This episode, “Time Travelers: The Future is Now” puts “global” in the Global Lithium Podcast. Joe is one day ahead; recording from Tokyo, the site of Battery Japan, on Saturday while Emily who is at the Colorado School of Mines for a Critical Materials meeting, has her feet firmly planted in Friday afternoon.

The podcast team catches up with each other as well as battery-expert Sam Jaffe of Cairn Energy to go over the latest in lithium news. They discuss the new demand forecast from Albemarle as well as SQM’s latest pricing and production information. They also review the status of the transition to high nickel cathodes and the implications on the raw material choice between carbonate and hydroxide.

Sam talks about the Chinese EV subsidy regime and how it impacts cathode decisions. Emily praises the mustache of Dr Dieter Zetsche of Daimler as well as his company’s new mobility JV with BMW. Joe calls FastMarket’s latest brine production numbers into question and revisits Morgan Stanley’s refusal to admit the error of their ways on their well worn oversupply ($8/kg carbonate price) narrative. The trio continues by chatting about Galaxy’s finally closed deal with Posco for Sal de Vida tenements and what happens next on the Salar del Hombre Muerto in Argentina.

The podcast closes with some “rapid fire” questions for Sam.

Episode 33 is brought to you by Zelandez — bringing actionable data to brine exploration companies faster. For more information please check out www.zelandez.com

Since I returned at 1am this morning from #BatteryJapan, I have completed one expert call and had requests for 3 more. The last round of earnings calls from $LTHM $ALB & $SQM have investors more confused than ever. pic.twitter.com/sjkdCH8u8f

— Joe Lowry (@globallithium) March 4, 2019

Special shout-out to @LithiumPodcast and @globallithium for having me on the Global Lithium Podcast. And here's @lithiumpodcast helping me out with Batteries in Five: https://t.co/HsRywSVt02

— Sam Jaffe (@samjaffe) March 3, 2019