Demand for critical minerals is growing apace. According to the latest Critical Minerals Market Review by the International Energy Agency (IEA), the world’s need for lithium, cobalt and nickel rose three-fold, 70 percent and 40 percent between 2017 and 2022. In the report, experts shed light on the ramifications of the progressive energy transition for the mineral market. They also present associated challenges.
Most recently, the energy sector has played the biggest part in the dynamic development. Based on the review, 56 percent of global demand for lithium came from renewable energy applications in 2022 alone. The huge need and resulting price increase caused the size of the market for commodities supporting the energy transition to double to 320 billion US dollars in a mere five years.
Consequently, the market, which was more a niche than anything else a few years ago, is increasingly stepping into the limelight of the mining and metal industries. The IEA opines this is good news as it creates new jobs. In addition, it opens the door to a new economic sector to several countries with extensive coal mining operations.
Alkemy Capital Investments plc (LON:ALK, FRA: JV2) is focussed on developing projects in the energy transition metals sector. Alkemy’s wholly-owned subsidiary Tees Valley Lithium (TVL) is developing a state of the art lithium hydroxide plant at Teesside, UK. TVL is Europe’s largest independent and sustainable lithium hydroxide producer.
