Metals
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Conveyor costs: economics of moving bulk material?
Conveyors are often the most economical way to move bulk materials over long distances, e.g., from a mine to a processing plant, with an economic cost of $0.1/ton-km, in order to generate a 10% IRR on capex, opex and other costs. These costs are c30% lower than for heavy trucks, opex is at least 60%…
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Howmet: turbine blade breakthroughs?
Howmet is an engineered metals company, and the world’s #1 supplier of blades and vanes for jet engines and gas turbines. It has claimed an edge in direct-casting cooling channels (rather than drilling them) and bond coats that improve the adherence of Thermal Barrier Coatings. Our Howmet gas turbine technology review found support for these…
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Going platinum: PGMs in energy transition?
Could PGMs experience another up-cycle through 2030, on more muted EV sales growth in 2025-30, and rising catalyst loadings per ICE vehicle? This 16-page note explores global supply chains for platinum and palladium, the long-term demand drivers for PGMs in energy transition, and profiles leading PGM producers.
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Leading PGM producers: mining, refining and recycling?
This data-file is a screen of leading PGM producers and recyclers. Eight companies control 90% of global production. Most are mid-caps. Four have primary listings in South Africa. Three are listed in Europe and the UK. Ore grades average 4 grams/ton, and recovery requires 60GWH/ton of energy, emitting 40kT/ton of CO2. But do recent company…
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Global PGM demand: breakdown by metal and use?
Core global PGM demand ran at 565 tons in 2023, which remains c6% lower than the all-time peak demand of 600Tpa in 2019. We model a recovery to 700 Tpa of demand for platinum, palladium and rhodium in 2030, then a long run decline to 350Tpa if EVs ultimately reach 90% of vehicle sales by…
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Commodity price volatility: energy, metals and ags?
Commodity price volatility tends to be lognormally distributed, based on the data from ten commodities, over the past 50-years. Means are 20% higher than medians. Skew factors average +1.5x. Standard errors average 50%, while more volatile prices have more upside skew.
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Electrochemistry: redox potential?
Batteries, electrolysers and cleaner metals/materials value chains all hinge on electrochemistry. Hence this 19-page note explains the energy economics from first principles. The physics are constructive for lithium and next-gen electrowinning, but perhaps challenge green hydrogen aspirations?
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Copper: the economics?
The economic cost of copper production is build up from first princples in this model, from mine, to concentrator, to smelter to 99.99% pure copper cathodes. Our base case is $7.5/kg copper cathode, with 4 tons/ton CO2 intensity, after starting from an 0.57% ore grade. Numbers vary sharply and can be stress-tested in the data-file.
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Global steel supply-demand model?
Global steel supply-demand runs at 2GTpa in 2023, having doubled since 2003. Our best estimate is that steel demand rises another 80%, to 3.6GTpa by 2050, including due to the energy transition. Global steel production by country is now dominated by China, whose output exceeds 1GTpa, which is 8x the #2 producer, India, at 125MTpa.
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Global tin demand: upside in energy transition?
Global tin demand stands at 400kTpa in 2023 and rises by 2.5x to 1MTpa in 2050 as part of the energy transition. 50% of today’s tin market is for solder, which sees growing application in the rise of the internet, rise of EVs and rise of solar. Global tin supply and demand can be stress-tested…
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