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Sector Note -
We take another look at lithium, this time from the perspective of development in Electric Vehicle (EV) battery types; this is driving changes in demand for the two basic lithium chemical feedstocks. It has recently become apparent that there is a major shift away from lithium carbonate into lithium hydroxide. This in turn is having a substantial impact on the development of various lithium mining and processing projects. In particular, projects that were planning to produce lithium carbonate are having to rapidly adapt as this chemical is not wanted by the high-end EV battery manufacturers. Hard rock spodumene is the ideal source for direct processing into the lithium hydroxide that is needed in all of the high-end EV batteries. Brine sources of lithium will require an additional stage to be added to their processes as they currently produce lithium carbonate, much of which is not of high-end EV battery quality.