Resumen de Concerns raised about supply of battery raw materials

Industrial Minerals

• Demand for battery materials will crash into limited supplies soon, at the same time as global carmakers attempt to switch to making electric vehicles.

  Increasing demand for graphite, cobalt and manganese is coinciding with a lack of sufficient supply to meet future expectations, miners said at this year’s Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) investors forum on energy materials and technologies, writes Daniel Sekulich.

  “Five or 10 years ago, there was no battery market for graphite. Today, that market accounts for 25% of global demand for the mineral,” Brent Nykoliation, senior vice-president at Toronto-based NextSource Materials, told delegates at the event in Toronto, Canada, March 4-7.

  This is causing a paradigm shift in the mainstream automotive industry, he said, with established manufacturers, such as General Motors, Fiat-Chrysler, Ford and others accelerating their production of electric vehicles (EVs).