Kamal Ahuja

Strong Growth in Lithium Demand to Power FMC Corp., Rockwood Holdings

July 30, 2008

Both ROC and FMC reported strong quarterly earnings this morning.

Rockwood Holdings Reports Q2 (Jun) earnings of $0.68 per share, excluding non-recurring items, $0.08 better than the First Call consensus of $0.60; revenues rose 17.8 percent YOY to $945.5 million vs the $902.1 million consensus. Company reaffirms FY08 revenue growth guidance of +8% (Adapted from Briefing.com / In Play)

FMC reported that 1Q Revenues jumped 23 percent to $806.6 million. Excluding a restructuring charge of $14.5 million, the company posted earnings of $1.29 per share. Net income in the quarter was $84.4 million, or $1.10 a share. FMC also again raised its 2008 profit forecast, excluding restructuring and other charges, to $4.20 to $4.40 per share (Adapted from Reuters report).

Getting Charged Up About Lithium

Thank you Julian Murdoch for mentioning my name and reports on Seeking Alpha. One of the reports attempts to answer your question on how many laptop batteries it would take to run an electric car.

In addition to FMC and ROC (both of which have retracted 15-20% from their recent highs), SQM is another way to invest in the impending lithium boom. Incidentally, SQM announced that "its current annual lithium carbonate capacity would increase from 30,000 tonnes to about 40,000 tonnes by the third quarter of this year".