The past 50 years have thrown up many challenges for lead producers and consumers.
However, current challenges, especially regarding the availability and cost of raw materials, whether primary or secondary, have never been so severe. Some of the reasons for this lie within the industry itself with global overcapacity to process both lead concentrates and battery scrap a key factor in the pressure on raw material supplies.
While almost all the increase in primary and secondary lead production capacity is taking place in Asia, its impact is not limited to producers in Asia. International trade in lead concentrates, battery scrap, lead scrap and secondary lead bullion, diverts feed away from refined lead producers in the mature markets of North America and Europe, posing a threat to their continued operation. This, in turn, raises questions about future patters of trade in refined lead. Existing barriers to trade and the threat of higher tariffs further complicate the free flow of lead between markets and where battery manufacturers chose to locate.
Consumers of lead, especially battery manufacturers, face other issues. Few can doubt that vehicles in the future will be very largely powered by batteries or, possibly, hydrogen. In either event, the market for SLI batteries will slowly diminish over time before disappearing. However, the speed of this transformation remains very uncertain with battery manufacturers caught between continued investment in improving the performance of batteries based on lead chemistry, compared to committing more fully to alternative battery technologies.
This paper will consider how supplies of primary and secondary lead may change over the balance of the current decade, both in terms of volume and in relation to developments in end-use markets.