Albemarle (ALB) Windfall Shows Lithium's Resilience to Recession Fears - Bloomberg
As other metals with a broader share in older industries, like copper, wilt under the weight of slowdown concerns, lithium prices are holding up. That's allowing producers to lock in sky-high prices in contract renewals, cushioning the blow of higher costs.
A mine worker takes water samples from a brine pool at the Albemarle Lithium mine in Calama, Antofagasta region, Chile.Photographer: Cristobal Olivares/Bloomberg
"While Chile and Australia account for the majority of global lithium mine supply, China has more than half of all capacity for refining it into specialist battery chemicals."
China is the least-expensive place to process lithium, due to lower construction costs and a large processed chemistry engineering base to tap into, according to Tozier. By comparison, it costs twice as much to build refining capacity in Australia and the US, while South America is somewhere in between.
See the whole piece on Bloomberg here: Albemarle Windfall Shows Lithium's Resilience to Recession Fears
