Milton Financials: Lithium demand could triple over the next ten years says mining firm Orocobre.

Oct. 20, 2010 - PRLog -- James D. Calaway chairman of the lithium mining firm Orocobre Ltd. has told Milton Financials’ sources that global lithium demand is likely to double by 2020 purely from existing applications like mobile phones and glass making, and could triple in that time as consumers purchase increasing quantities of portable electronics and battery-driven vehicles.
Sales to electric-vehicle battery manufacturers are expected to add 10,000 tons by 2015 before rapidly increasing he said.

“You could very easily see by 2020 the need to triple production or even more just to accommodate the auto sector,” the chairman told reporters.

The Brisbane, Australia based firm is to begin producing lithium in 2012 at its first project, Salar de Olaroz in Argentina and the company should become profitable by the following year when output reaches 15,000 tons of lithium and 36,000 tons of potash fertilizer and there are plans for the company to begin pumping lithium-rich water from a second Argentine mine in 2014, Milton Financials was informed.

Calaway went on to tell reporters that he expected lithium carbonate prices to remain in the $4,000 to $6,000 per ton bracket.

Milton Financials research shows that prices for lithium carbonate, the processed form of the mineral used in the manufacture of lithium-ion batteries, last year declined by as much as 20% from a 2008 peak of $6,500, but have climbed back to around $6,000.

Calaway went on to say that it was possible that prices could drop through 2015 if production capacity climbed faster than demand, Milton Financials has learned.

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