Battery Metals

The world’s largest lithium producer is planning to expand production in Australia, chasing the market for a form of the metal increasingly being used by the makers of electric car batteries.

Albemarle Corp. will halt plans to expand its production of lithium carbonate production in Chile, the company said Nov. 8. Instead, it will plow funding into a western Australia project that produces lithium hydroxide, a rarer form of the metal that is growing in use and sells for higher prices than the carbonate form.

Global demand for lithium overall is expected to almost triple by 2025, as carmakers such as Tesla Inc. look to increase sales of battery-powered vehicles. Lithium miners, meanwhile, have struggled to meet the demand, and prices for the metal have tripled in just four years.

“The challenge at this point in the cycle is that lithium companies must ramp their capital spending amidst a backdrop of some uncertainty around lithium pricing,” Chris Berry, a New York-based analyst and founder of research firm House Mountain Partner, said Nov. 8. “For Albemarle to maintain its market share with such robust lithium demand growth, the company needs to execute their capacity expansion plans perfectly.”

Albemarle is planning to boost its overall production of lithium across its operations in Chile, China and Australia to 225,000 tons per year in 2025 from 65,000 tons in 2017, the company said in its earnings report. In just four years, lithium has gone from being Albemarle’s least important product to representing 44.5 % of the company’s revenue in 2017.

On Nov. 8, the Charlotte, N.C.-based company posted mixed third-quarter results that sent shares down 1.8% at 1:45 p.m. to $106.04 in New York trading. Capital expenditures were up, reaching record levels, but Albemarle missed estimates for sales.

Batteries that use aluminum and oxygen normally live fast and die young. But a new design could help these high-energy devices endure.

Aluminum-air batteries are promising candidates for a new generation of non-rechargeable batteries, because they’re super lightweight and compact. The batteries, however, aren’t widely used because their internal components quickly degrade each other. In the new aluminum-air setup, described in the Nov. 9 Science, oil acts as a buffer between the battery’s corrosive components to greatly extend the device’s shelf life. Such improved single-use batteries could provide backup power to electric cars or supply energy in remote, off-the-grid regions.

“This is a very smart design,” says Yiying Wu, a chemist at Ohio State University not involved in the work. The oil-buffer scheme might also improve other types of metal-air batteries susceptible to self-corrosion, like zinc-air devices, he says (SN: 1/21/17, p. 22).

Each aluminum-air battery cell contains two electrodes, an aluminum anode and a cathode, separated by a liquid called an electrolyte. Oxygen molecules sucked from the air enter the cathode, where they react with electrons and aluminum particles that flow through the electrolyte from the anode, releasing energy to power electronics. Unfortunately, when the battery is on standby, the watery electrolyte eats away at the aluminum anode.

Rethink

“It’s essentially like a rusty tool,” says study coauthor Brandon Hopkins, a mechanical engineer at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., who did the work at MIT. “If you put aluminum — or really any metal — in water, it will start to rust and corrode.” As a result, aluminum-air batteries can lose about 80 percent of their stored charge just sitting on a shelf for a month.

Hopkins and colleagues built a more durable aluminum-air device by inserting a polymer membrane between the cell’s electrodes. When the battery is powering a device, electrolyte is pumped into the areas on both sides of the membrane from a reservoir. When the cell isn’t in use, electrolyte is drained from the side of the membrane next to the aluminum anode, and oil flows in to replace it. This oil shields the aluminum from the electrolyte on the other side of the membrane. As soon as the battery is reactivated, the oil is pumped out and stored, and the electrolyte flows back in.

In lab experiments, Hopkins’ team used the new battery cell, as well as an aluminum-air cell without an oil buffer, for five-minute intervals with 24- or 72-hour breaks in between each interval. The electrolyte inside the conventional battery ate through the aluminum anode in just a couple of days, and the cell died. But the electrolyte inside the oil-equipped battery corroded the aluminum anode much more slowly, and the battery worked for a few weeks before the cell’s energy was completely drained.

The single cell prototype’s energy output could possibly be increased either by making a larger version or by stacking multiple cells within a battery pack. “Researchers still need to investigate the performance, cost and reliability of a full-scale battery pack,” Wu says.

In addition to serving as an emergency power source for electric vehicles, such lightweight cells could power long-range drones, Hopkins says. Aluminum-air batteries could also supply off-grid energy to military personnel and civilians in remote areas.

Chile’s copper production from January to September this year jumped 7.3 percent from a year earlier, boosted by a sharp increase in production at BHP’s Escondida copper mine.

Chile, the world’s top copper exporter, produced 4.25 million tonnes of copper in the first nine months of 2018.

Escondida, in northern Chile, produced 950,900 tonnes through September, up 57.8 percent from the same period in 2017, when a strike shut down the mine for more than 40 days.

Production from state-run miner Codelco’s deposits reached 1.29 million tonnes between January and September, a drop of 2 percent, with downturns at almost all its facilities.

The country’s second-largest mine by output — Collahuasi, owned by Anglo American Plc and Glencore Plc — ramped up production by 5.8 percent to 401,800 tonnes.

Polish copper giant KGHM Polska Miedź (KGHM) has signed a four billion-US dollar contract to supply China Minmetals Nonferrous Metals (Minmetals) with copper cathodes.

KGHM has long been Poland’s largest exporter to China. This new, long-term copper cathode delivery contract was signed on November 6 during the first ever China International Import Expo 2018 in Shanghai. The five-year contract could reach four billion US dollars in value depending on the level of use of the quantitative option.

“Stable deliveries and high-quality products are very important to us. Over 20 years of constructive cooperation with KGHM has shown us that we can trust the Poles. We are happy that our cooperation is developing and that we can be KGHM’s ambassador in the Chinese market,” said Guo Wenqing, CEO of Minmetals.

“We are happy with our cooperation with China Minmetals. Thanks to them, we can make use of the huge potential that the Chinese market has to offer. The foundation of our cooperation is a win-win approach – we make sure that both sides will benefit from our cooperation. On this, we are also building a Polish brand in China. For over 20 years, we have developed a reputation of being a reliable and stable partner. Thanks to KGHM, China perceives Poland as not only a market, but also a source of high-quality products,” explained Marcin Chludziński, CEO of KGHM.

KGHM’s plans for the Chinese market do not stop with Minmetals.

“By participating in this event, we want to strengthen our cooperation with the Chinese market and introduce other products manufactured by the KGHM Group, such as silver, gold, refined lead and more. We are also here to promote other companies from our capital group, and to build a positive image of the Polish economy in China,” added Mr Chludziński

“We never forget that we are a great Polish company whose task is to pave the way for other companies from our homeland.”

Japan’s Sumitomo Metal Mining Co Ltd posted a 52 percent jump in half-yearly pre-tax profit on Thursday but cut its full-year forecast, blaming lower-than-expected metal prices amid the U.S.-Sino trade spat, and reduced nickel output.

“It doesn’t seem that there will be a quick settlement in the U.S.-China trade conflicts, which suggests no quick recovery in prices of metals,” Kunihiko Miyamoto, deputy manager of Sumitomo Metal Mining, told a news conference.

Pre-tax profit rose to 73.21 billion yen ($644 million) for the six months through September, bolstered by increases in prices of copper, nickel and cobalt from a year earlier, and a one-off gain from the sale of its stake in Pogo gold mine in Alaska.

But the Japanese miner and smelter slashed its pre-tax profit prediction for the year to March 31 to 107 billion yen from its May guidance of 121 billion yen as it lowered its assumed prices of metals such as copper and nickel.

The revised figure missed a consensus estimate of 138.1 billion yen in a poll of 11 analysts by Refinitiv.

Sumitomo Metal now expects an average copper price of $6,294 per tonne for the current financial year, against its May estimate of $6,500, and nickel price $5.89 per pound against its earlier forecast of $6.

The company said boiler and other system troubles at its Taganito nickel ore processing plant in the Philippines earlier this year reduced its refined nickel output to 28,200 tonnes from 30,967 tonnes a year earlier.

“We missed to fully benefit from higher metal prices in the first six months due to lower production of nickel,” Miyamoto said.

The company also trimmed its annual dividend forecast to 89 yen per share from its May estimate of 103 yen as it cut its profit forecast.

Sumitomo Metal has made a series of investments over the past four years to boost capacity of the nickel-cobalt-aluminium (NCA) cathode materials used in Panasonic Corp’s lithium-ion battery that powers Tesla Inc’s Model 3 and Model X.

Sumitomo Metal’s estimated profit from materials businesses for the year is unchanged from its May estimate, the company said.

Copper slipped on Thursday as the dollar extended its recovery after U.S. midterm elections, with prices also pressured by a drop in China’s copper imports.

China, which consumes nearly half the world’s copper, registered a 19 percent monthly drop in copper imports in October, data showed on Thursday.

Aanalysts, however, were not too downbeat about copper’s prospects.

“There’s a Golden Week effect in (the data). October data is usually lower. I would still expect relatively high refined copper imports over the fourth quarter because the import arbitrage has been wide open,” said Colin Hamilton, head of commodities research at BMO Capital Markets.

The copper import data was part of a batch of China trade figures that showed much stronger than expected exports as shippers rushed goods to the United States to beat higher tariffs due to kick in at the start of next year.

Import growth also defied forecasts for a slowdown, suggesting that Beijing’s growth-boosting measures to support the cooling economy could be starting to have an impact.

“Two or three weeks ago … the feeling was that China wasn’t reacting quickly enough to the weaker equity markets, but now we’re getting better figures … it should be supportive (of copper) in the short term,” Hamilton said.

* PRICES: Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange traded down 0.6 percent in official midday rings to $6,115 a tonne, while aluminium was last bid down 0.2 percent at $1,981.

* DOLLAR: The dollar rose after the U.S. midterm elections went largely as expected and investors turned their attention towards Federal Reserve policy.

* CHINA ALUMINIUM: China’s aluminium exports fell in October as sliding domestic production meant less metal was available for overseas markets.

* CHINA-U.S. TRADE: The U.S. Commerce Department said it would impose final duties on Chinese common alloy aluminium sheet products.

* BRAZIL ALUMINIUM: A Brazilian court has upheld a decision forcing aluminium producer Norsk Hydro to run its Alunorte alumina refinery, the world’s largest, at half capacity because of environmental violations.

* INDONESIA TIN: Indonesia’s refined tin exports in October fell 42 percent from the previous month after the introduction of restrictions on some sales by the country’s only tin-trading bourse.

* JAPAN METALS: Japan’s Sumitomo Metal Mining Co cut its full-year profit forecast, blaming lower than expected metal prices, reduced nickel output and the U.S.-Sino trade conflict.

* PRICES: Zinc traded up 0.6 percent at $2,470, having hit its lowest in 1-1/2 months. Lead traded up 2.1 percent to $1,968, tin was up 0.6 percent at $19,155 and nickel traded down 1.1 percent at $11,690.