Housekeeping

Posted on by Bodo Albrecht

Dear Subscribers,

Kitco 1Please pardon the prolonged absence. As some of you already know, I made a career change earlier this year. Joining BASF takes me full circle as head of their Precious Metals Chemicals business. On top, I am in charge of battery recycling and fuel cell materials which means I was put right into the candy store of Metal Megatrends.

BASF are ok with me continuing to write and speak at conferences, so the adventure will continue, albeit with a new angle now, going from looking at the world of what’s possible to including the world of what is industrially feasible today. This should be fun!

Because of the transition, I did neither speak at the Auto-Catalyst, Battery and Fuel Cell Seminar in Atlanta, nor did I submit a “Metal Megatrends” paper for the upcoming IPMI conference. Sorry about that, but I had to get my bearings back first. I’ll be back on stage soon.

The adventure will soon continue, so please visit on occasion. Thank you!

IPMI Europe: Seminar in Budapest in November

Posted on by Bodo Albrecht

Here is another event that will be hard to miss: the European Chapter of the International Precious Metals Institute (IPMI) will be hosting its annual seminar in Budapest / Hungary from November 12 – 13 this year. I had the pleasure of attending last year’s seminar in Prague which was sold out. Presentations were very good (not just because I was speaking), and there was plenty of time to get to meet people who don’t typically attend the IPMI’s U.S. based summer conferences.

If you are pondering to attend I suggest you decide quickly because space is, once again, limited. Event title is “7 Precious Metals” and – spoiler alert – I will be talking about something completely different.

Head over to http://www.ec-ipmi.org/index.php/next-events-title/8-events/16-budapest-2018-seminar to learn more, and to register.

Hope to see you all there!

Florida Strong Coin for Hurricane Irma Damage Relief

Posted on by Bodo Albrecht

This is an initiative from Republic Metals Corporation that I thought you should be aware of. Florida is not only the home of the HQ of IPMI, the International Precious Metals Institute, but also of Republic Metals, and it’s a very cool state on top of it. If you know me, you know of my passion for the Florida Keys which is why I am happy to promote this initiative:

“On Sunday, September 10th, the eye of Hurricane Irma, a category-4 hurricane, made landfall over the Florida Keys and continued North, devastating cities all across the Sunshine State. Over 6.5 million people, approximately one-third of the state’s residents, were forced to evacuate in preparation for one of the strongest storms on record. Damage from Hurricane Irma is estimated to be greater than $50 billion and, with government aid and resources already spread thin from Hurricane Harvey, rescue workers and organizations need as much assistance as possible.

Republic Metals has designed and minted the FLORIDA STRONG silver round, and in cooperation with eBay and APMEX will be donating the profits to Red Cross. These donated funds will provide the families and individuals impacted by Hurricane Irma with much-needed food, shelter, and supplies.”

The coins are just $25 a piece so it’s easy to help. Click here to get to the eBay item.

Thank you!

 

Meine “Panama Papers”

Posted on by Bodo Albrecht

100-oz-gold-bar-verical-transparancy“Let´s get physical: the golden rules of gold investment” wurde als zweiter Beitrag ins Programm des “Emergency Summit” aufgenommen, einer Konferenz für Investoren, die vom 24.-26.Oktober in Panama City stattfinden wird.

Mehr Infos zur Konferenz gibt´s hier: http://liveandinvestoverseas.com/conf/emergency-offshore-summit-2016/

Titel des ersten Vortrags ist: “Rare opportunities: understanding strategic metal investments”.

Über Ihren Besuch würde ich mich sehr freuen.

 

BYD -disrupting the markets for lithium and cobalt

Posted on by Bodo Albrecht

A few weeks ago, during the hype of hundreds of thousands of Tesla Model 3 pre-orders, I saw a report on BYD (“Build Your Dream”), a Chinese car and battery manufacturer. While Tesla are scrambling to determine how they will meet the large demand they just created, BYD is already producing very large amounts of battery-electric vehicles today. I was drawn to their YouTube video (link below, the Spanish title seems to be an error on their part) in which BYD are demonstrating the safety of their lithium iron phosphate batteries.

These batteries are interesting because they are likely to do two things to metal markets:

  1. They will remove the issue of a cobalt shortage which is imminent – standard Li-ion batteries contain about 10% of cobalt, that’s 50kg per Tesla. Arithmetically, there just isn’t enough cobalt available in the world to prevent a market crash. See my earlier report on the topic here, and an excellent analysis by John Petersen titled “EV batteries and the cobalt cliff” here.
  2. The effect on lithium will be inverse: the metal, unchained from cobalt, can now be used more widespread than previously possible.

BYD-E6_3Intrigued by this scenario, I requested an interview with BYD which was promptly granted. I wish other companies were this forthcoming when it comes to asking about their technology. The resulting article was just published on Kitco News today, and it can be viewed here. Hope you will find it interesting.