PMET’s Brinsden sees analysts eating humble pie as lithium takes off

The spodumene price has rallied from less than US$1000 per tonne in November to over US$2000/t currently.

PMET Resources managing director Ken Brinsden said he was confident the rise was sustainable due to a drop in the price of battery cells.

“They’ve basically halved in cost in less than two years, so that was very rapid, and much faster than most people would have imagined,” he said.

“All of a sudden, the addressable market that those cells can make their way into, and the economics of the application of those cells, becomes compelling.”

Brinsden said it was positively impacting demand in the energy storage sector, as well as diesel replacement.

“China’s at the leading edge. Today, they’re at about 25% penetration in that subset of the diesel world, and they’re going to get 50% by 2028,” he said.

“I suspect we’ll be talking about that a lot more, in the coming years, as another key source of demand.”

Analysts have been upgrading their spodumene price forecasts since the start of the year.

Argonaut lifted its 2026 price forecast by 25% to US$1447/t, while Canaccord Genuity boosted its estimate by 75% to US$2800/t.

The most bullish is Barrenjoey, which sees the price averaging US$3250/t, which it admitted was well ahead of consensus of US$1185/t.

“I love the idea that analysts are now eating humble pie,” Brinsden said. “All those who said ‘it’s surplus, surplus, surplus through to 2030’ – I’ve just never believed it and thought, ‘no, they’re reading this the wrong way’.

“There is a good chance that almost everybody is underestimating demand.

“There are huge changes underway in global energy networks and energy storage is becoming absolutely central to stability in those networks and growth in power supply.”

Brinsden said it wasn’t so much about more energy but the way energy assets were utilised.

“Today, in every network, power generation peaks in the morning and it peaks in the evening and then, typically for the rest of the day, it’s, relatively speaking, idling, so the fastest power generation you can install today is via a battery and running those same generating assets, just a bit harder, storing the energy and then discharging it when it’s required,” he said.

“That is a compelling economic opportunity today because of the cost of those cells coming out of China, and that’s why everyone is surprised now about how quickly the energy storage sector has taken off, so to me, because that’s such a fundamental change in global energy networks, it is always going to be underestimated.

“I’m firmly of the view that most models will be wrong, and people will underestimate how much lithium is required.”

Shaakichiuwaanaan advancing

Against this backdrop, PMET has continued to advance the Shaakichiuwaanaan project in Quebec, which is the largest lithium pegmatite resource in the Americas, hosting 4.84 million tonnes of contained lithium carbonate equivalent.

“The project is compelling. It’s just so good, rooted in the geology. It’s a little bit of a unique combination of scale and grade,” Brinsden said.

Shaakichiuwaanaan also hosts high-grade caesium and tantalum.

“That’s rare in the hard rock lithium world. There are not many examples of it globally, Brinsden said.

“As a result, it continued to attract capital even during the down cycle, so we’re confident that ultimately, the project makes its way down the development pipeline and it becomes a meaningful asset.”

The October feasibility study on the CV5 pegmatite outlined a production rate of up to 800,000tpa of spodumene concentrate at all-in sustaining costs of US$597/t over 20 years.

The caesium and tantalum were not included in the study and are the subject of ongoing metallurgical testwork.

“We believe they’re a fantastic credit at Shaakichiuwaanaan, and hence, we’re keen to demonstrate how compelling those co-products will be,” Brinsden said.

“It’s a bit of a unique opportunity, because not many people have [caesium], and that’s going to be a key contributor to lowering our equivalent spodumene cost.”

The company has also had plenty of enquiries about the caesium, a market currently dominated by the Chinese.

“While it’s a relatively small market, it’s still material to a project of our size, and plenty of people appear to be chasing both the raw material and the value-added product, so it’s got us working hard on what we think the supply chain could look like,” Brinsden said.

“At the very least, we would say there’s a pretty full bain-marie of options as to what we can do with the scale of our discovery.”

PMET is advancing project approvals with a view to make a final investment decision by the end of 2027.

Drilling keeps delivering

Yesterday, PMET reported new wide, high-grade intercepts from infill drilling at the Vega Zone.

The results included 55m at 2.58% lithium oxide, including 29.9m at 4.11%; 24.7m at 4% lithium oxide, including 7m at 6.04%; 31.2m at 2.07% lithium oxide, including 1.1m at 7.32%; 20.6m at 3.31% lithium oxide, including 8.8m at 5.02%; 49.7m at 2.08% lithium oxide, including 4m at 5.16%; 40.1m at 1.97% lithium oxide, including 9.3m at 3.66%; and 22.1m at 2.31% lithium oxide, including 9m at 4.18%.

The company also reported the discovery of a high-grade, near-surface lithium-tantalum zone called Helios at the CV13 pegmatite with results of 8.8m at 2.97% lithium oxide, including 5.4m at 4.6%; 6.4m at 2.61% lithium oxide, including 4.1m at 3.94%; and 18.4m at 1.19% lithium oxide, including 6.9m at 2.49%.

“We’re really excited. We love the fact that there is just amazing prospectivity there. It’s a pretty incredible piece of geology,” Brinsden said.

“We’re motivated to keep drilling. There’s plenty to follow up. Our objective would be to continue with exploration this year.”