A decade of underinvestment in new supply and an enormous metal intensive energy transition have offered little incentive for investors to back the next generation of deposits.
As opposed to the oil and gas industry, which has made considerable advancements in exploration technology over the past 70 years, the mining industry largely relies on technologies used for hundreds of years.
It seemed graphite — the anode material used in EV batteries — was set to follow in lithium’s wake having been ignored by investors throughout last year’s lithium-buying mania.