Lithium stocks, like Albemarle (SYM: ALB) plummeted on supply issues.
A good deal of fear has now been priced into the lithium stock and, with lithium prices showing signs of life again, it’s time to buy the beaten-down giant. ALB also just declared a 40-cent dividend, which is payable on July 1 to shareholders of record as of June 14.
In addition, analysts at Fast Markets say demand for lithium in the U.S. could grow by 487% to 412,000 tonnes by 2030. Should that happen, a shortage of supply coupled with explosive demand will lead to another massive spike in lithium.
And, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, demand for metals such as lithium are “on track” to outpace production through 2050. The UN group also noted that “Lithium tops the list, with expected demand in 2045 more than tripling the likely supply in that year of nearly 1,400 metric tons.”
Plus, as noted on a recent second quarter earnings call:
“We continue to anticipate 2.5x lithium demand growth from 2024 to 2030. We see battery size growing over time, driven by technology developments and EV adoption. These factors all translate to significantly higher global lithium needs. To put all this in perspective, we expect that this industry needs more than 300,000 metric tons of new lithium capacity every year to satisfy this growth. This means, we need more than 100 new lithium projects across resources and conversion between now and 2030 to support this demand,” said CEO Kent Masters.