Supply Squeeze Risks Are Pushing Lithium Higher and Higher

  • Pre-holiday maintenance in China, virus risks tighten market
  • Battery prices to stay flat if upstream delivers on time: EVE
Photographer: Carla Gottgens/Bloomberg
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Lithium has burst into 2022 with a fresh price spike that hands electric-vehicle makers more warning of even sharper cost pressures to come.

Supplies of the mainstay battery material face a series of near-term risks that threaten deeper shortages just as demand accelerates with rising global EV adoption. An already-tight market is being roiled by everything from plant maintenance and Winter Olympics curbs in China, to pandemic-related labor shortages in Australia.