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1) As the race for critical minerals heats up, we have seen in previous briefs that automakers are jumping into the mining industry to make sure they have enough raw minerals for their electric cars. As the annual BMO Global Metals & Mining Conference took place in Florida, new attendees were present that represented Tesla, Ford Motor and Mercedes-Benz. These representatives "had room-to-room meetings with a lot of companies, like ourselves, trying to understand how to address their own supply chain," said Trent Mell, the CEO of Electra Battery Materials Corp. The electric car use a lot more critical minerals such as copper, cobalt, nickel and lithium, and the demand for all these minerals outstrips the supply in the next decade. According to Bloomberg, the spot value of lithium consumption surged from $3 billion in 2020, to about $35 billion in 2022. Tesla claimed that lithium was a meaningful source of cost increase and announced it's building a lithium refinery in Texas, along with rumors of buying a lithium miner. About $266 billion has been invested in developing electric vehicles since 2018 but only $40 billion on raw materials, according to Battery Materials Review, which tracks investment in the sector.
2) South American countries, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, and Brazil are looking at creating a lithium cartel in charge of expanding South America's processing capacity. The group wants to create a group, similar to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) when it comes to production flows, pricing and good practices according to the Argentinean delegation at the PDAC Convention. Argentina, Chile and Bolivia make up the "Lithium Triangle", which has about 65% of the world's known resources of lithium and was responsible for almost 30% of the world's production in 2020. Brazil is playing catch up with Sigma Lithium opening up its Grota do Cirilo mine in April, and rumors swirling that Tesla might buy the company. If this is the case, and a lithium "cartel" is formed, the supply of yet another critical mineral is in the hands of foreign powers, while the US plays catch up and hopes we are on good grounds with the countires part of the "cartel".