Category Archives: Supply Chain

Vivas Kumar joins Benchmark Minerals from Tesla

Supply Chain, Tesla

Released: 08 April 2019 |

LONDON, UK | Benchmark Mineral Intelligence (Benchmark Minerals) is delighted to announce that Vivas Kumar has been appointed Principal Consultant. Vivas joins from Tesla, one of the world’s foremost electric vehicle (EV) and lithium ion battery producers.

Vivas was responsible for building Tesla’s lithium ion battery supply chain from May 2017 to April 2019, where he sourced a multi-billion dollar yearly spend portfolio of battery metals and chemicals, as the Gigafactory 1 scaled to become the world’s biggest battery plant and the Model 3 launched.… Read more

Plight of the PRA and how Benchmark became the lithium industry’s reference price

Batteries, Chile, China, Disruptive technology, Energy storage, EV, Lithium, Minerals, Supply Chain, Uncategorised
Since its inception in 2014, the rise of Benchmark Mineral Intelligence as the lithium industry’s reference price has been the ideal case study for how the commodities publishing industry is changing.
Scandals such as libor and credit ratings fixes have brought scrutiny (and with it a police raid) on commodity price publishers. This has resulted in new stamps of approval such as IOSCO certification, something that is alien to a lithium industry undergoing an evolution in demand.
Here we outline how the price assessment industry is evolving and how trust is central to Benchmark’s lithium-focused approach that is cutting a new, more accurate and transparent path forward.
… Read more

China’s battery push and Elon Musk’s Tesla – Benchmark quoted in Bloomberg article

Batteries, Supply Chain, Tesla

Benchmark Mineral Intelligence was recently quoted in an article written by Bloomberg News renewable energy correspondent, Joe Ryan.

The article focuses on lithium-ion battery production in China, and in particular how despite Elon Musk and Tesla attracting many of the headlines, their plans modest when compared to China.

By 2020 installed lithium-ion cell production capacity in of China’s megafactories* alone will exceed 160 GWh, in comparison Tesla’s gigafactory in Sparks, Nevada will have 35GWh capacity.

The article quotes Benchmarks, Simon Moores and can be viewed here in the June section of our In the Media page.… Read more

Cobalt brings tech giants’ supply chains into the spotlight

Apple, Batteries, Benchmark, Cobalt, conflict minerals, Minerals, Supply Chain

A new report by Amnesty International has uncovered human rights abuses by one of the world’s leading cobalt producers in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Ltd, a mining group partly owned by the Chinese government, has been accused of selling cobalt sourced from child labor into major battery production facilities in China, Japan and South Korea.

From these facilities, batteries were traced into the supply chains of major technology and auto companies including Apple, Samsung, Sony and Volkswagen, among others.… Read more

The future is now

Batteries, Supply Chain

The 1964 World’s Fair held in New York City was the touchstone for a postwar US.

It was the grandest and most optimistic show on the planet at the time and on an influential par with the British Empire’s Great Exhibition in 1851.

Designed not only to show off technological prowess, it signified the rise of the US as the dominant global power.

The exhibition showcased a number of household products, cars and gadgets, making bold predictions about the future.

During the show’s run over two 6-month periods between 1964-65, 51m visitors saw forecasts about the way we would live.… Read more

Goldman Sachs: Wind & solar the “new shale gas”

Albemarle, Batteries, Cobalt, EV, Graphite, Lithium, Solar, Supply Chain, Tesla
  • Leading investment bank publishes The Low Carbon Economy //
  • Benchmark advises on the lithium and battery supply chains //
  • Solar and wind “the new shale gas” //
  • Albemarle and Tesla identified as investment targets //

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Goldman Sachs has declared wind and solar power industries the “new shale gas” in its first ever published opinion on the low carbon economy.

The report entitled The Low Carbon Economy: GS Sustain equity investor’s guide to a low carbon world 2015-2020 was released last night coincide with the COP21 climate change talks in Paris this week.… Read more

Europe’s conflict minerals conundrum

Apple, Batteries, Cobalt, conflict minerals, Graphite, Lithium, Supply Chain

The EU will have to tread carefully when considering which minerals and countries to include in its upcoming conflict minerals legislation.

Many of these industries are niche and inflexible meaning any swift and significant change will likely have a negative impact on the EU and on the source country that the legislation is designed to clean up.

For example, the Democratic Republic of Congo relies heavily on income from mining copper, tin, tantalum and cobalt. Not all raw materials exported from the Congo, or central Africa for that matter, are associated with armed rebel groups.… Read more

Benchmark #2 launched: Europe’s conflict crackdown

Apple, Batteries, China, Cobalt, conflict minerals, EV, Gigafactory, Graftech, Graphite, Lithium, Rare earths, Supply Chain, Tesla

Download our Q2 magazine which analyses the crackdown on conflict minerals in Europe, the fragile structure of these markets and the logistics involved in transporting them around the world

With Europe set to follow in US footsteps with the introduction of conflict mineral legislation, the sustainability of critical mineral markets is set to come under renewed scrutiny.

Benchmark Mineral Intelligence‘s Q2 magazine examines two of the most critical mineral markets – cobalt and rare earths – as well as the industry which provides their crucial link from mine to market: logistics.… Read more

Mineral Supply Chain

Disruptive Technology: Supply Chain Impact

Benchmark, Report, Supply Chain, ,

As part of our Supply Chain 20/20 initiative, Benchmark launches a new white paper examining the impact of disruptive technology on critical raw materials
As leading global companies such as Apple, Google and Tesla Motors push forward with the commercialisation of new, disruptive technologies, Benchmark Mineral Intelligence analyses the impact this is having on critical raw material markets.

With existing raw material supplies unable or too inflexible to provide sufficient quantities needed to feed the projected growth rates expected in these new markets, Benchmark’s free download, Mineral Supply Chain Visibility: impact of disruptive technology on critical raw materials, outlines the opportunities and challenges facing critical mineral suppliers.… Read more

Benchmark Magazine launches

Apple, Batteries, China, Cobalt, EV, Gigafactory, Graphite, Lithium, Supply Chain, Tesla

Benchmark Mineral Intelligence has launched its first magazine issue which is free to download.

The quarterly publication is part of an annual Membership that specialises in critical minerals and metals, disruptive technology and emerging markets.

Benchmark will go beyond the news which is widely reported and direct to the core of trends that are effecting our industry today. We will regularly give our own independent opinion from our wealth of in-house expertise and data collection.

This first issue is a battery special and includes:

  • The Battery Megafactories are Coming 
  • Tesla Gigafactory Demand Revisited 
  • Battery Raw Material Review
  • Exclusive interview with SQM’s new CEO
  • Upstream and downstream news analysis 
  • And more…

Subscribe as an early adopter today for exclusive benefits.

… Read more