%% UPtrend including but nor limited to cash copper markets; better most likely than SLV, silver, lead, iron ..................................................
Nickel is struggling atm. JJN Nickel ETF, black Nickel Cash, Orange First Quantum Minerals, Green LIT Lithium ETF, Blue
Since LME's Nickel fiasco, prices have dropped. There are signs nickel has bottomed imo. Can't really see it on the cash or futures yet. Nickel futures
4h ago Pro-China Agents Posed as Activists to Protest US, Canada Mines Margi Murphy, Bloomberg News (Bloomberg) -- Pro-Chinese agents posed as concerned local residents on social media to try and spark protests over the opening of rare earth mines in the US and Canada, cybersecurity researchers said in a new report. The fake Twitter and Facebook accounts were created to give China, the largest producer of rare earth minerals, a competitive advantage, cybersecurity research company Mandiant disclosed on Tuesday. Mandiant has reported on a network of thousands of fake accounts across numerous social media platforms, websites and forums since 2019 that support China’s political interests. In one recent campaign Mandiant coined “Dragonbridge”, fake accounts purported to be concerned local residents and environmentalists on Facebook to orchestrate protests at the Texas facility of the Australian mining company Lynas Rare Earths Ltd., according to Mandiant. It was unclear who was behind the campaign, the firm said. The fake accounts claimed that the processing facility would spur irreversible environmental damage and radioactive contamination that could cause cancer and deformities in newborns, Mandiant researchers said. The accounts also criticized President Joe Biden’s plan to expedite mining of these rare minerals. China has used its dominance in the rare earth minerals market, critical for manufacturing mobile phones and other electronics, to threaten the US with export bans. As a result, the Pentagon has promised to beef up domestic production. It inked a $30 million deal with Lynas in 2021 to build a facility in Texas, which the Australian company said could help it produce a quarter of the world’s demand. Dragonbridge was also behind fake accounts criticizing a new mine in Saskatchewan from Canada’s Appia Rare Earths & Uranium Corp., which was announced this month, according to the report. In addition, the campaign’s accounts stoked anger over USA Rare Earth LLC’s plans to open a mine in Oklahoma, Mandiant said. The Department of Defense said it will review the report, adding it would look into “ongoing concerns regarding a lack of transparency and over-reliance on concentrated foreign sources of critical minerals in key US supply chains for essential global civilian and national security applications.” Dragonbridge has been behind 10 disinformation campaigns targeting Ukraine, according to Mandiant, including claims that the US was storing bio-weapons in labs in the country, according to Mandiant. “The private sector is now the victim of attacks by Chinese information operations, which are growing increasingly aggressive,” said John Hultquist, vice president for Mandiant Intelligence. “Information operations are typically a problem for civil society, governments, and platforms,” he said. “They rarely target the private sector so directly and aggressively.” ©2022 Bloomberg
Knotty nickel supply chain highly exposed to fresh shocks Frik Els | July 21, 2022 https://www.mining.com/knotty-nickel-supply-chain-highly-exposed-to-fresh-shocks/ Staring down nickel sanctions. Monument to Soviet marines who fought in WW2, located on the promenade of Kerch, in Crimea. (Stock Image) The nickel market is hostage to two mercurial players: Russia’s Vladimir Potanin and China’s Xiang Guangda. Nicknamed the Nickel King and nickel’s Big Shot, both the bosses of Norilsk and Tsingshan have swayed the market for decades. But now the pair’s impact on nickel trading is even more outsized, thanks to the war in Ukraine and the fallout of Xiang’s big short, which was built up on the belief his company can again transform the fundamentals of the nickel supply chain. Big shot, big short While the physical market was digesting the possible impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at the end of February, the March short squeeze “threatened to trigger a Lehman Brothers-like shock through the entire metals industry and possibly topple the London Metal Exchange itself,” according to one report. After briefly sending nickel above $100,000 a tonne, Xiang walked away only $1 billion or so poorer (the position was valued around $8 billion at the time) and a chastened LME reopened trade in the devil’s copper. The outcome wasn’t quite the Great Metal Crisis of 2022, but it was certainly more evidence that nickel could be ground zero if (or should that be when) the GMC occurs. Too big to sanction There are no sanctions on Russian nickel. Canada, Australia placed sanctions on Potanin, who owns around 37% of Norilsk and is Russia’s richest man. The UK followed suit at the end of June. Judging by the lack of market reaction to the announcements, Norilsk’s nickel appears to be flowing freely, with the price dipping below $20,000 a tonne this week for the first time this year. Kwasi Ampofo, Head of Metals and Mining at BloombergNEF, tells MINING.COM that while Russia is responsible for around 9% of global nickel production, its output of class 1 nickel is closer to 20%. That makes it by far the biggest producer globally of nickel suitable for the battery supply chain. Bloomberg New Energy Finance – 1H 2022 Battery Metals Outlook: Supply Turbulence Ahead “If you compare it to the current situation with gas supply in Europe, should there ever be sanctions on Russian nickel it would certainly upend the market,” says Ampofo. Potanin, a close ally of the Kremlin who appears to have thrived under the sanctions regime, is also making moves to stave off any restrictions on Norilsk with the opening of merger discussions with aluminium giant Rusal. The idea being to create a company that’s “too big to sanction”. Norilsk also produces 10% of the world’s platinum and 40% of its palladium, used primarily in auto catalytic converters, while Rusal commands 6% of aluminium output. EVerything counts Nickel is a small market – only just over 2.2 million tonnes in 2021 – but is growing rapidly, thanks to the uptake of electric vehicles around the world. From under 400kt last year, demand for nickel sulphate used in lithium-ion batteries could hit 1 million tonnes as soon as 2026, according to BNEF’s latest outlook for the EV market. Nickel market action is concentrated in Asia, specifically Indonesia (28% of mined supply) and Philippines (15%) nickel pig iron and ferronickel trade feeding China’s stainless steel industry. China is also responsible for half the world’s nickel sulphate refining capacity. Apart from EVs, stainless steel demand is also in a post-pandemic growth phase, says Ampofo, growing 7% this year, according to BNEF’s forecasts. Stainless steel still constitutes roughly 70% of the market for nickel. Pals of HPAL A slew of Chinese-backed Indonesian projects to produce Class 1 through high pressure acid leaching (HPAL) to extract nickel from low-grade laterite ores was delayed by covid-19 for the best part of two years. Bloomberg New Energy Finance – 1H 2022 Battery Metals Outlook: Supply Turbulence Ahead Only the Obi Island HPAL project by Harita Group and Ningbo Lygend has been able to achieve commercial production, but only at the intermediate nickel level, according to BNEF. Nevertheless, BNEF believes production of nickel sulphate in Indonesia is expected to account for 7% of the global total this year and 22% by the end of 2025 as delayed projects come on stream. Pigging out Another route to battery grade metal is through Tsingshan’s NPI-to-matte process, which is now beginning to hit markets in greater volumes. Announced early last year, it was not an entirely new process, but given the company’s track record – transforming the stainless steel trade through cheap NPI – the market took the initial announcement seriously. NPI typically contains 12%–14% nickel, ferronickel 25%–30% and matte 70%–75% which makes it suitable for sulphate production, but the process is highly energy intensive, and in many regions that energy still comes from coal-fired plants. DSTD makes waves Ampofo says the sustainability challenge with nickel from Indonesia is emissions and DSTD (deep sea tailings disposal). Not surprisingly, the many mines and projects in the region using DSTD are not welcomed by environmentalists. In 2019 a spill from Metallurgical Corp of China’s Ramu operation dumped 35,000 tonnes of nickel equivalent into Papua New Guinea’s Basamuk Bay, lighting a fire under prices. In the battery supply chain, nickel is already the worst CO2 offender, even before the circuitous route via ferronickel and NPI is taken into account. Tesla’s impact report released in May showed 31% of the company’s battery supply chain emissions come from nickel. Nickel imports nixed Ampofo points out that the EU is readying regulations – the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism – that imposes levies on raw material exports from countries with lax emissions policies. That would make European carmakers reluctant to source from places like Indonesia and more dependent on Russian supply, particularly at a time when production in other parts of the world is stagnating. And the low-carbon intensity nickel that is out there is being snapped up – just today Ford announced a a deal with BHP for nickel from its Australian operations. Ampofo forecasts tight market conditions for nickel in 2022, with a possible technical deficit of 37,000 tonnes, in the absence of any major disruption from Russia: “While the battery nickel coming out of Indonesia may substitute some of Russian output, global supply chains do not change overnight – that will really put pressure on prices.”
Ford’s flurry of supply deals gives iron a starring role in EVs Bloomberg News | July 22, 2022 |Battery Metals USA Iron Ore https://www.mining.com/web/fords-flurry-of-supply-deals-gives-iron-a-starring-role-in-evs/ Ford River Rouge Complex, Dearborn, MI. Credit: Flickr Commons Ford Motor Co.’s new laundry list of battery-metals suppliers reads like a who’s who of the mining world, spanning the globe from Argentine lithium to Indonesian nickel. The agreements, including announcements with mega miners BHP Group and Rio Tinto Group, are the latest sign of how big automakers are rushing to secure raw material supply and sidestep shortages. Yet the most consequential deal of all may be one putting iron at the center of Ford’s electric-vehicle plans. Surging prices for battery materials have hammered profitability for carmakers this year and prompted warnings that raw material shortages could put the brakes on the electric-vehicle revolution. Western automakers mostly use nickel-cobalt-manganese, or NCM, batteries. In addition to soaring metal costs, cobalt comes with its unique set of worries because the vast majority of reserves are in a single country: the Democratic Republic of Congo. The other main type of battery, lithium-iron-phosphate or LFP, is cheaper and more stable, but generally seen as less powerful than NCMs. However, technology has been improving — championed by Chinese battery powerhouse Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd., or CATL — and Tesla Inc. announced last year it would shift to LFPs for standard-range cars as part of efforts to reduce costs. Responding to the looming supply crisis, Ford announced on Thursday that it’s been traversing the globe signing long-term supply agreements with the world’s largest miners, refiners and battery-makers. But it also struck a deal to buy a huge volume of CATL’s iron-based battery packs for use in its Mustang Mach-E and the F-150 Lightning, easing its current-reliance on nickel-based cells while putting LFP chemistry into two of its most powerful models. To be sure, the company will still be heavily exposed to any further volatility in prices for lithium, which have surged much more than the other metals. But iron is far more abundant and affordable than nickel and cobalt, which will reduce costs and limit supply risks. If successful, Ford’s gambit could further entrench iron’s burgeoning role in the electric-vehicle revolution. “They’re effectively taking the donkey of the battery world and putting it into the Mustang,” said Tom Price, head of commodities strategy at Liberum Capital. “LFP is undeniably the cheap option when it comes to batteries, but if they can turn it into a slick and powerful outperformer, then it will be a significant development for the EV world,” he said. On the raw-materials side, Ford announced a lengthy list of agreements on both nickel and lithium, although most of them are nonbinding and involve plans to “explore opportunities.” It did announce a binding offtake agreement for lithium carbonate from a project in Nevada, among several announcements related to local processing of battery materials in North America. “Automotive companies broadly will need to be quick to make these many deals, because down the road when this transition begins to take route it will be difficult to source these metals that are critical,” Bart Melek, the head commodity strategist at Toronto Dominion Bank, said in a phone interview. “If you don’t have these deals it becomes questionable whether you will be able to deliver what you promised in terms of new EV capacity.” If the move to LFPs seems risky given potential concerns about performance, it’s worth noting that CATL and Ford both have a track record of defying doubts about their technological innovations. Ford was mocked by rivals when it switched out the steel used in the body of F-150 trucks in favor of aluminum, but the move ultimately proved highly successful. Speaking to media and analysts, Lisa Drake, Ford’s vice president of EV industrialization, declined to reveal the horsepower on those models with LFP batteries. The longer-range versions of the Mach-E and F-150 Lightning will continue to use NCM batteries, Ford said. “I’d love to get into this today. But we really just want to focus on the capacities that we’ve installed and the battery-cell raw material change,” she said. “When we get to the product launch, I think you’re going to hear a lot more about this.” (By Mark Burton and Joe Deaux, with assistance from Gabrielle Coppola)
Lithium refining is a ‘license to print money,’ Musk says Bloomberg News | July 21, 2022 |Battery Metals Markets Australia Latin America USA https://www.mining.com/web/lithium-refining-is-a-license-to-print-money-musk-says/ Elon Musk. (Image by Steve Jurvetson, Flickr). Elon Musk has called for more investment in global lithium refining to ease shortages in battery materials — and promised those who seize the opportunity it’s as lucrative as “basically minting money.” “I’d like to once again urge entrepreneurs to enter the lithium refining business. The mining is relatively easy, the refining is much harder,” Tesla Inc.’s Chief Executive Officer Musk said on a Wednesday earnings call, adding there are software-like margins to be made in lithium processing. “You can’t lose, it’s a license to print money.” Constraints on availability of lithium that have sent prices surging aren’t the result of scarcity of raw materials, but because of limited global capacity to deliver ultra-high purity battery-grade hydroxide and carbonate chemicals into battery supply chains, he said. Lithium carbonate prices in China have jumped almost 450% in the past year. Refining is “quite difficult and requires a massive amount of machinery and it’s a hard thing to scale,” Musk said. China accounts for more than half of all existing lithium refining capacity, though suppliers are adding projects in other hubs. Tianqi Lithium Corp. delivered its first batch from a new Australian operation in May. Financiers and producers have been wary of major spending on new refineries and mines to add capacity after a previous flood of investment swamped demand and triggered a years-long slump in prices through late 2020. Many materials suppliers were forced to slash output or delay projects, and some operations shuttered entirely. Australia should aim to add more refining and manufacturing capacity to help the world meet now surging demand for batteries, Tesla Chair Robyn Denholm said this week. Projects are also being added in locations including Chile, Argentina and the US. Tesla is building a cathode facility in Texas and is working on lithium refining activity. “If our suppliers don’t solve these problems, then we will,” Musk said. The company sees signs some other materials prices — including steel and aluminum — are on a downward trajectory, and expects to see the benefits as soon as later this year. (By Annie Lee)