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Big news about world lithium resources today. Is TRU true?:
Outlook: Lithium Industry Will Be Pushed in to Oversupply through 2013
22 January 2009
Lithium consultants TRU Group Inc. says that its updated lithium outlook for presentation at the IM Lithium Supply & Markets Conference Santiago 2009 will conclude that the industry is not immune from the global recession and will be pushed into oversupply this year through 2013.

Global use of lithium will decline sharply by at least 6% in 2009 and demand is unlikely to bounce back any time soon as consumers put off buying laptops or cell phones containing lithium batteries.

It is likely now that some expansions and new projects will be delayed or cancelled until market conditions improve. However, new and large uses for lithium will start having a major impact on demand within the five-year horizon: Lithium use in electric vehicle batteries and lithium alloys for aircraft.

TRU forecasts that demand will be strong and sustained in these two segments over the long term 2020. The industry does need at least one of the announced pipeline production projects to come into production and also could do with another new project as the market tightens around 2015-2017.

New lithium producers still will need to be cost-competitive with existing salt lake brine based producers in South America and China. Emerging technology may make some of the undeveloped medium-sized (brine) lithium resources quite attractive. The industry through expansion and development of new resources will have no problem meeting demand, the outlook concludes.

TRU Group Inc., based in Toronto, Canada and Tucson, USA, are industrial management and engineering consultants with a strong capability in lithium project development. The firm is a world leader in resource evaluation, salar exploitation, brine and mineral lithium extraction and processing technologies—those in use, prospective, and leading edge.

TRU has evaluated and modeled most of the known existing lithium properties and advised a number of players on a wide variety of lithium resource, engineering, process, business and investment issues.

The outlook presentation will be posted on the site after the conference on 27 January 2009 at the link trugroup.com/Lithium-M...