DER Li-Wert der Zukunft ... Einstieg dringend empfohlen !!! (Seite 54)

[Karlll]

Lithium: Facts from the Santiago conference

By R. Keith Evans
27 Apr 2009 at 10:11 PM GMT-04:00

The current state of lithium, as reported by producers, engineers and geologists.

A conference entitled “Lithium Supply and Markets” organized by Industrial Minerals magazine was held in Santiago, Chile, in January this year. It was attended by 150 geologists, mining engineers, chemical engineers, producers, would-be producers, battery experts and consumers.

I had the pleasure of making the first presentation concerning reserves and resources estimating in situ tonnages of 30.0 million tonnes Li -- about 160.0 million tonnes of carbonate-the principal feed chemical for the chemicals used in lithium-ion batteries. My estimate was an update of a National Research Council report produced in the mid 1970s that included more recent discoveries using the tonnages estimated by the companies involved in evaluating the targets.

As with the NRC report a fairly wide definition of reserves and resources was adopted along the lines of the statement made by Donella Meadows in 1972: “Reserve is a concept related to the amount of material that has been discovered or inferred to exist and that can be used given reasonable assumptions about technology and price.”

Definitions used by the USGS are tighter than this, hence lower tonnage estimates from that source. When the NRC team was chosen, they were asked to produce a report on resources which in the opinion of the team stood a reasonable chance of being developed should a major demand develop. At the time the concern was in respect of lithium availability for fusion reactors. The tonnage estimated by the panel which included one current and one former USGS employee, was considerably higher than the official estimate at that time.

Other estimates quoted in Santiago were, from Chemetall and FMC for 28.0 million tonnes Li and 35.7 million tonnes Li from SQM. In my address I also quoted an estimate by Laksic and Tilton (University of Chile and Colorado School of Mines respectively) of 35.0 million tonnes.

In a summary of the conference proceedings by the Chairman, Gerry Clark, he wrote “What speakers in the Santiago event demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt is that lithium resources are large enough to cover any rationally conceivable demand.”

Before leaving the subject of resources and reserves, I would like to make the comment that moving from one category to the other is an expensive exercise. As an example, the hectorite deposit on the Nevada/Oregon border includes 5 lenses. When drilled years ago Chevron, the former owners, came up with a tentative estimate of 2.3 million tonnes Li.

As part of its feasibility study, Western Mining has redrilled one of the lenses in a tight pattern to indicate a lithium tonnage of 162,000 tonnes -- within 10% of the Chevron figure for that lens. Do they feel any compulsion to undertake detailed drilling at the other lenses? As they are a relatively small company I doubt they can justify the expense so the other 2 million tonnes will remain a resource. The drilled lens contains 800,000 tonnes of carbonate -- more than sufficient for a lengthy period.

In Santiago, the issue of current chemical production capacity was discussed, which is estimated at 115,000 tpa of lithium carbonate equivalents compared with current demand of approximately 95,000 tpa.

Of greatest interest were projections of future demand where the numbers vary greatly because of the varying assumptions regarding total vehicle numbers, the percentage penetration of the total market, the percentage that are lithium-ion powered and the vehicle type.

All three producers used the same figure of 0.6 kg carbonate per 1kW/h of battery capacity with the type, battery capacity and carbonate demand tabulated below.

Vehicle type Battery capacity LCE demand
Mild HEV 2 KW/H 1.2
PHEV 12 7.2
EV 25 15

SQM in its estimate for 2020 looked at two scenarios assuming 9% and 20% electric vehicles in the fleet, with 60% and 80% being powered with Li-ion. The annual carbonate demand ranged from 20,000 to 30,000 tonnes in the conservative case and 55,000 to 65,000 tonnes in the optimistic case.

Unlike others making estimates, SQM also looked at 2030 with 15% and 25% electric vehicles in the fleet and 75% and 90% being Li-ion powered, resulting in a demand of 65,000 to 75,000 in the conservative case and 135,000 to 145,000 in the optimistic case.

Chemetall also tabulated a range of scenarios with 2020 demand for vehicles from a low of 5,000 to a high of 60,500 tonnes of carbonate demand.

FMC estimated the market penetration of HEV’s at 20-30%, PHEV’s at 2-5% and EV’s at 1-3% in 2020 resulting in a carbonate demand of 70,000 tpa.

TRU Group presented a study made on behalf of Mitsubishi Corporation. They estimated the production of battery equipped cars at approximately 5 million/year by 2020. They also estimated that technical issues will be resolved for HEV’s by 2011, for PHEV’s by 2014 and for EV’s by 2016.

Future Production
Current capacity for chemical production approximates to 115,000 tpa lithium carbonate equivalents. At the conference, Chemetall announced that it would stage expansions in response to market demand which could more than double capacity (to 50,000 and 15,000 tpa carbonate and hydroxide respectively) by 2020 and FMC stated that at current production rates they had reserves to last for 70 years.

SQM pumps sufficient brine to recover approximately 800,000 tpa of potash (potassium chloride and potassium sulfate) together with a modest tonnage of boric acid. From this feed, they have the lithium capacity to produce 40,000 tpa carbonate but the lithium in the brine greatly exceeds this and the excess is returned to the salar. The expansion potential is large. The company claims that the returned brine contains in excess of 200,000 tpa carbonate.

The Chinese plan to expand brine based capacity to 85,000 tonnes by 2010 but it is known that they are having serious problems with the high magnesium/lithium ratios in two of the brine sources.

In addition to current operations, there are several projects in the pipeline. Three pegmatite-based operations are being evaluated, one each in Australia (Galaxy Resources), Canada (Canadian Lithium) and one in Finland (Keliber Resources) with combined in situ reserves of 124,000 tonnes Li.

In Argentina the Salar de Rincon project is targeted to produce 17,000 tpa carbonate and the Salar de Olaroz, further north, is being evaluated by Orocobre.

In Bolivia, the Salar de Uyuni, is receiving massive attention by the press with claims that “it is the Saudi Arabia of lithium” also “it has nearly 50% of the world’s reserves” and “it is the most beautiful resource on the planet”. It is undoubtedly large -- Ballivian and Risacher estimated 5.5 million tonnes Li but are only one eigths of the world's resources. However, it has problems with a low lithium concentration and a high Mg/Li ratio which will complicate and increase the cost of processing. The richest part of the reserve is in an area where the aquifer is very thin and the whole salar floods seasonally -- diluting grade and complicating the construction of the very large area of solar evaporation ponds that will be required.

Mention has been made previously of Western Lithium’s hectorite deposits in the western United States. The resource contains in excess of 2.0 million tonnes Li. Costs are not known yet and this also applies to Simbol Mining’s proposal to recover lithium from the rich geothermal brines in the Salton Sea area of Southern California.

RTZ’s jadarite deposit in Serbia appears to be extremely attractive. This unique mineral occurs in 3 stacked layers. Reserves were disclosed for one of them in Santiago -- 0.95 million tonnes Li. If mined out over a period of 20 years it would produce 60,000 tpa carbonate with the co-production of 300,000 tpa boric acid. The geological evidence suggests that this deposit could contain double the currently stated reserves.

Cost Considerations
Claims have been made that if (ever) the cheap brine sources became exhausted or that demand grows to such an extent that the current producers cannot meet demand, citing pegmatite costs as an example, costs and prices would increase considerably.

In fact, a high percentage of current Chinese production is from spodumene and two years ago SQM estimated production costs at between $1.80 to $2.20/lb. A former North Carolina producer recently gave a ball-park estimate of $2.50-$3.00/lb for production from the former operations there.

In Santiago, Chemetall did the math as far as batteries are concerned. Assuming a battery cost of 500 euros per kW/h and a carbonate cost of 6 euros per kilo, the carbonate cost is less than 1% of the total. Clearly, higher costs are palatable in this application.

Finally, in situ resources total approximately 30.0 million tonnes and a recovery of 50% seems probable. As a result of an increase in exploration activity more resources will be discovered and partly explored pegmatites will be drilled at depth and along unexplored strike. An example is the Tallison pegmatite in Western Australia where increased reserves were announced in Santiago -- from 223,000 tonnes Li in my estimate to 1.5 million tonnes.

There are a large number of additional Salares in the Andean altiplano now receiving the attention of geologists and if recovery from hectorites proves to be viable there are numerous other occurrences reported upon by the USGS.

Returning to the demand side, each million tonnes of recovered elemental lithium or 5.6 billion kilos of carbonate will be sufficient for 560 million vehicles requiring a 10 kW/h battery. Most batteries will require much less.

Keith Evans, a geologist by profession, first became involved in the lithium business in the early 1970s when he was asked to evaluate the future potential of Bikita Minerals. Subsequently, he jointed Lithium Corporation and later joined Amax Exploration. On behalf of Amax and a Chilean partner he led the negotiations with the Chilean Government to evaluate and later develop the brine resources of part of the Salar de Atacama. After retirement from Amax he has continued to consult on a number of industrial minerals and has written extensively on the subject of lithium reserves.



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[Karlll]

Ich denke, die Google-Angabe ist richtig, danach sind es derzeit
7,85 Mrd. $.

Heute Abend gibts dann Q-Zahlen und dann schauen wir mal, ob es nach-
haltig über 30 $ geht.

Gruß Karlll

[LeoF]

Marktkapitalisierung und Aktienanzahl in Deinem Link hauen, glaube ich, nicht ganz hin.

[eelefele]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 37.042.647 von Karlll am 26.04.09 17:37:30

Moin zusammen

Nehmt doch einfach den hier, ist zwar 15 Minuten Zeitverzögert, aber immerhin ist schon Ende April

http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/quickchart/qsymbinfo.asp?si…

[Videomart]

THE BUY SIDE: TECHNOLOGY

"My money's on China to produce world-changing electric car" AVNER MANDELMAN

April 25, 2009

Avner Mandelman is president and chief investment officer of Giraffe Capital Corp. and the author of The Sleuth Investor.

[e-mail]

Once in a while an invention comes along that changes the world: Gunpowder. Printing press. Steam engine. Telegraph. Telephone. Model T Ford. Television. Computers - first mainframes, then PCs. The Internet. And now - maybe - the electric car.

I'm not talking hybrids here. I am talking a pure electric that runs on batteries, travels 200 kilometres on one charge, drives fast, consumes electricity equivalent to the cost of a gasoline engine getting 240 mpg, needs a one-hour charge for each travel hour - yet costs less than $25,000 and can be fixed by the local electrician and bicycle repairman.

Such a car, if it existed, would change the world: There'd be less pollution, less noise, less power wielded by evil madmen selling oil, less wars, less global warming, more capital for good uses ... Or am I off base? If I am, Warren Buffett is off, too. Last fall, he plunked down $230-million (U.S.) for 10 per cent of BYD, a Chinese private company making pure electrics. Some are soon to be tested in a regular corporate fleet in Portland, Ore., allegedly before being marketed and sold in North America.

Why did Mr. Buffett do it? Yes, BYD Auto's founder and chief, Wang Chuanfu, is dynamic, but the world-changing potential of the electric car is more so. And why China - are there no cheap electrics in the West? Not really. The Canadian Zenn car costs too much for the little it does; the Volt is made by the UAW (enough said); and the American Tesla has made big claims but has mostly taken deposits. Yes, you could order a Tesla today; it would cost you $100,000, run smoothly and fast, and could be charged off your home socket. But of the $100,000 price tag, $60,000 covers the battery - which lasts only three to four years, and the company makes fewer than a hundred Teslas a year. So not only is it not cheap, it's also not available.

The Tesla's problems reflect the three common problems of most Western electric cars: the need for a cheap battery that lasts; the need to produce lots of cars; and the need for a big company to back it all up. Let's take these in order.

To make an inexpensive battery ($10,000, say), you need really cheap lithium deposits, billions of dollars for a huge production line of Model T-like proportions, and super know-how. In all these the West is deficient. Yes, lithium is everywhere, but the cheapest deposits are in Australia (small), Chile (okay), and Tibet - best and large, and controlled by China (one reason Tibet will likely never be free). As for billions of dollars needed for a production line, China is among the world leaders in batteries. (BYD is also the world's biggest maker of cellphone batteries.)

As to know-how: A dirty little tech secret is that the West is a relative slouch in chemistry; few bright students study it since environmentalists gave it a bad name. In China, though, many bright people study chemistry, so most innovative batteries today are Chinese-made. One day we might see a big production line of lithium batteries close to Tibet, to power all those BYD electric cars. (Incidentally, could electric motor production be why China has been buying copper massively?)

Now, for the final reason why pure electrics can't be produced in the West. Aside from the labour-cost disparity, no big company in the West really wants to do it. China doesn't have a major stake in traditional car manufacturing, but the Japanese, South Koreans, Americans and Canadians have lots of jobs and pensions (and car dealerships) tied to existing cars, so politically things can't change quickly. (Witness Detroit and Windsor.) In particular, car companies have little interest in pure electrics. This isn't a question of a conspiracy, but of commerce. If they made a really inexpensive electric car, it would drive down the value of all their used (gasoline) cars, and would dissuade buyers of new (gasoline) cars. The Chinese don't mind wrecking the old automotive system - matter of fact, the Chinese government is 100 per cent behind the pure-electric effort. So a $20,000 to $25,000 Chinese pure electric car is likely to be sold here in three to five years, in my opinion.

And Warren Buffett will make a heap of money on it.

What would the world look like then? First off, over time, oil could become somewhat less of a factor in civilian economies. Since there would be alternatives, its competitive price would hinge on marginal cost of production. Yes, in war times oil price will zoom, but afterward electrics would put a cap on it. (FYI, oil's marginal production cost is $20 [U.S.] to $25 a barrel on average - half its current price.)

As well, the environment would look very different, with less pollution as nuclear power makes electricity smog-less. The electric grid would have to be expanded, but not immediately, because the North American grid is not fully used at night (when most cars would be charged). And yes, planes would still need petroleum, as would the machines of war, and the petrochemical industry (that's polyester for you). But cars could use electricity, so repair and spare parts would be a smaller business (aside from battery handling - lithium can be tricky stuff), so more of the manufacturing base could move offshore. And the car you'd be driving 10 years hence would likely be Chinese, with BYD nearly as big as Toyota.

Am I off base? I don't think so. As BYD's Mr. Wang said: I cannot compete with Toyota in cars whose engines have 1,500 moving parts. But my electric engines have only 45 moving parts. There I can compete.

What are the investment implications? Stocks to do with the electrical grid, nuclear power, or car electronics, yes. Investment in oil producing dictatorships, no. And closer to home: With cheap and reliable electric cars, could large suburban houses be good investments yet again?


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20090425.RB…

[Rehrl]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 37.001.732 von Pichel007 am 20.04.09 13:40:38

Ja, wenn Lithium in die Höhe schießt, wer kann sich dann ein Elektrobobil leisten. Die Lithium Batterien sind so schon kaum erschwinglich. Ob sich da nicht das nächste Problem ergibt? Nur eine Frage!

[Karlll]

Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile (ADR) (NYSE:SQM) is based in Chile and is a leading producer of lithium carbonate. The company also sells specialty plant nutrition products, iodines and derivatives and other industrial chemicals.

This past October, the company reported a revenue growth of 56% for the first 9 months of 2008 when compared to the same period in 2007.

Website: http://www.sqm.cl/aspx/en/Default.aspx
Market Cap: $7.04B
P/E: 16.42
Forward P/E: 13.58
Recommendation: Buy shares under $30 and hold for a long time.


Dieser Artikel ist am 21. Jan. 2009 erschienen. Der Kurs lag an diesem Tag bei 26,5 US-$.

Karlll

[LeoF]

Offenbar beträgt die Marktkapitalisierung 8,11 Mrd USD bei einem Aktienkurs von 30,80 USD.

Einige Daten aus der letzten Analystenpräsentation:

Revenues 2008: 1,774 Mrd USD (2007: 1,188)
Operating Income 2008: 632 Mio (2007: 260)
Net Income: 501 Mio (2007: 180)

[LeoF]

Wie hoch ist derzeit die Marktkapitalisierung bzw. wieviele Aktien gibt es?

[Pichel007]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 36.959.246 von Karlll am 13.04.09 12:12:08

Naja, der Weg wird vielleicht noch lang, aber er wird beschritten.
Und eines ist ja auch klar, wenn die ersten Plug in Hybrid so richtig in Serienreife gehen, dann werden die Kosten auch fallen, aber Lithium wird nach oben schiessen.
Toyota Prius ist der Anfang gewesen, aber dieses Auto würde mich nie hinter dem Ofen hervorlocken.
Sogar die Scheichs denken mittlerweile langsam um, man sieht es am Investment in Daimler und die machen sich ernsthaft Gedanken und das sicherlich zurecht.
Öl wird weiterhin gebraucht, aber die Welt hat mehr in der Hinterhand als Öl.
Mein Zukunftsdenken
Plug in Hybrid...ohne Öl geht es noch lange nicht.