Mith

A Malaysian recycler covered by the press is said to be positioning itself as a midstream processor for European black mass headed to China. That is a problem, because European black mass cannot legally reach China directly or through a Malaysian intermediary. My latest write-up covers the regulatory picture across the EU, Canada, and the US for this lithium-ion recycling intermediate, why the Malaysian routing argument does not hold up, the product loophole quietly draining critical minerals out of all three markets, and what the Trump administration can and cannot do about it.

America’s Lithium. @LithiumAmericas' Jon Evans youtu.be/hudbS0HwAnU?si… via @YouTube

I would add here that “intervening in futures markets” could mean a lot of things, and some would be crazy and some might not be. Shorting spot would be crazy. Acquiring via futures down the curve? Less so.

@j6trader @anonimook555 @StreislandFX They could survive on just black mass, but the recycling vertical would just be a dead end with really no prospects, i.e., clients for expansion, without battery grade.

@Mith_ @anonimook555 @StreislandFX Thanks as always Mith. Dire for just the recycling aspect? The new equipment you noted earlier seems promising.

This is interesting and also very speculative, so take it with a grain of salt. A resident of the Tinfoil Hat and Mayonnaise Society keeps an eye on shipments from overseas for $ABAT this is the same investor that caught the shipment that had membrane equipment last year. This time he found one from a few months back from a company called Ferrum Poland, and listed was a pusher centrifuge along with what look like tools for its maintenance. What is that? A pusher centrifuge continuously separates solids from liquids, spinning the mixture at high speed to force the liquid through a sieve while mechanically pushing the dewatered solid cake out the other end. They are standard equipment in fertilizer, salt, and chemical production, anywhere you need to continuously dewater crystallized solids at high throughput with consistent residual moisture in the product. In lithium-ion battery recycling they are used in the final stages of battery grade production to dewater crystallized sulfates and hydroxides before drying. The shipment lists the weight at 1,220kg, consistent with a single PM-23 at 800kg plus maintenance tools and ancillary components. However, the listing also describes 3 packages as LAC, loose articles on pallets, which is standard freight terminology for items shipped unsecured directly on pallets rather than boxed or crated. This could mean that they shipped 3 centrifuges and not one. We do not know for certain. Either way, $ABAT has at least one piece of equipment that belongs at the end of Phase 2, specifically the stage needed to produce battery grade metal sulfates or lithium hydroxide monohydrate. Also for those wondering, this unit seems small but the facility is rated at 20,000 TPA of feedstock. Only about 40% of that is actually converted into black mass, the rest is low value materials like foils and steel casings which are separated in Phase 1. The PM-23 is sized about right for the flow they would need for any of the battery grade components.

One last post about $ABAT. The stuff about the centrifuge brought up: what about South Carolina? Going off the USASpending site the grant is still active and they have been reimbursed for $1.45 million. But what they are doing is a question. Also in the last earnings I noticed they started to use a new term when talking about the second facility: “As far as our recycling operations, we have announced that in addition to our first recycling plant near Reno, we are moving forward with the design and construction of a second battery recycling facility in the Southeast US.” Southeast US. I know South Carolina has gotten quite crowded, with @abt_company that makes at least 4 lithium-ion recyclers setting up shop in that state. So who knows, maybe they moved over to Georgia or Tennessee. May be time for the company to lay off the Secret Squirrel stuff and give an answer on this one because $1.45 million is a lot of visits to the Waffle House.

In order to answer that we have to look at why Li-Cycle went under. They tried to establish a first mover position in an industry that was really not even an industry outside of China. The companies that are around now, like $ABAT, pulled back and pivoted away from building for future feedstock supply and focused on current supply. Li-Cycle’s mistake can be seen in them spending capital on black mass production sites instead of moving forward with what is truly needed: battery grade. And this is where companies like $ABAT still have the Sword of Damocles hanging over their head. Black mass production, while vital, is currently in overcapacity globally. There is an addendum to that however: high quality black mass is in a deficit, which is why companies in Asia are looking at getting their hands on all the black mass they can, purifying it, and then exporting to China, who just recently changed their import regulations to allow the import of black mass. $ABAT has a process to produce high quality low impurity black mass, but if they do not get to the point where they can then convert that to battery grade, and I have said this a couple times, if they are not at least commissioning systems for battery grade by the end of the year things are going to look dire for them.

@Mith_ @StreislandFX What do you think about the recycling segment of $ABAT? Viable or it will be another Li-Cycle 2.0?

@The_Bob_Gnarly don’t worry Matty my social media presence is doing just fine.

@JGolfington7 I saw that one, odd comments from a person who works for the Mine Safety and Health Administration.

@Mith_ This is really cool Mith. Appreciate your insight! Comment 75 made me laugh....how big is the market...like huge bro

Most know about the Nevada Department of Environmental Protection; that is who issues the permits to $ABAT A correspondence for Tonopah has shown up, and it is what you can call a worksheet for the Plan of Operations for the mine. Remember, this is correspondence between all the agencies involved and is a way for them to work out the plan before it gets submitted to the BLM to kick off the NEPA review. It looks like they submitted the first draft in November of last year. Always good to see them doing their homework. It does look like they will be using an ESS and solar for the site, most likely a hybrid since they are so close to the highway and local utilities. To find the document, head over to the website and fill out the form as shown in the screenshot. Once again, and not to sound like a broken record, this is just a worksheet at best and is meant to help the company get the plan done, so you will find a lot of stuff they need to fix or explain. This kind of operation is new, and the only true reference is Thacker Pass. ndep-onbase.nv.gov

Seeing quite a few lithium claystone projects in Nevada announcing that they are resuming exploration, with a few taking the steps to upgrade their technical studies and move into 2P measurements. This is mostly due to two things. The big one of course is the correction on the price of lithium, which could stay in this range as long as the Q2 financials from China are not too abysmal, but guidance could help with that but I expect some retracing. The second of course is the demand for ESS offsetting the loss from EVs, and many, and I am one of them, believe that the drop in demand for EVs is short-lived as the renewed interest people are now having because of higher gas prices, is demonstrating. I think by the end of the year we could see a handful of the projects announcing the initial steps to start NEPA reviews. Brines have overtaken the optics when it comes to lithium production in the US, but claystone projects while more expensive will have the ability to produce 2 to 3 times the lithium of a brine project and will be needed if the US ever expects to meet its own lithium demand.

They most likely paid for it last year and the shipping date was in February; they even said something along the lines that most of the purchasing was done. However like with most things right now, there is a pretty substantial lead time. I bet they are still waiting on stuff ordered at least a year ago. Tonopah is going to be interesting, and I bet once the NOI is issued by the BLM they will start to pre-order a lot of the processing equipment, which unless it is from overseas we will not know about until it shows up in a permit application.

@Mith_ Any comment on the timing for this purchase? I expected this kind of equipment would've been on site already. Doesn't seem like massive CAPEX to pay upfront. They were cash tight last year but it's probably more of a delay issue regarding "phase 2" or whatever it's called now?

After the graphite and stray impurities like copper and such have been removed, based on their grants and the systems they have now, the solution that moves forward would just contain the cathode metals and the acid. That is why a small unit like the PM-23 could work here. They will, based on NDEP filings from ages ago, use solvent extraction to extract and then precipitate out the nickel, cobalt, and manganese. These sulfates will need to go through a crystallization process just like the lithium does, hence they need a centrifuge for that. The second and third centrifuges (if they have three) will most likely be on the lithium hydroxide monohydrate line, one as primary and one for redundancy. That line will most likely be in continuous operation, while the metal sulfates line will most likely be intermittent or run in batches.

@Mith_ If they did, in fact, purchase three units, would that be overkill for the TRIC facility? What might be the logic behind purchasing three of them?

This is a post over on LinkedIn from the CEO of @AscendElements I wish the company was more active here on X, but I understand why they are not. This is a great explanation of why I am not an investor in OEMs but rather in their supply chains. What I find so exciting right now is that, for the first time in generations, we are watching a supply chain being built right in front of our eyes. Currently, when it comes to lithium concentrates and precursors, the US will be looking at Chile and Argentina. In the US, we are seeing expansion of production from brines in Texas, but most primary projects are still years away. Secondary sources will be the real heroes well into the next decade, ensuring that the US doesn’t lose valuable feedstock to other countries while providing, maybe not at primary scale, but enough material to help lower costs for domestic manufacturers.

FYI I was banned from Stocktwits because people reported me for being mean. Some were permabulls, and a few were just idiots, like those posting that Abe died and claiming I was begging for donations to bury him. A few even tried to get me banned on Twitter/X for “harassment,” and some went as far as reporting my Substack for funding hate speech groups to get it shut down. That campaign was likely led by some OGs because I wouldn’t join their camp. Could I have been nicer on Stocktwits? Maybe. But I refuse to hide behind alts and will only post as myself, and Abe and I are much happier and more productive by not being on Stocktwits.

@Mith_ Nice work as usual! Thanks

Rather...repeated...banged the table...

A few notes on the TotalEnergies buyout. TL;DR it's a bad deal for taxpayers but it's not (quite) permitting abuse. 1. In 2022 TotalEnergies overpaid for their offshore wind lease (~$955M) and they hinted they wanted to get out of it. 2. This is because the economics of offshore wind have taken a downturn and the IRA tax credits are getting phased out. 3. The Trump admin is likely blocking/not reviewing approval of TotalEnergies' offshore projects projects. But TotalEnergies even signaled they would pause their applications before Trump came into office. 4. This story isn't a new instance of permitting abuse (blocking permits is abuse, but this isn't a new instance of blocking a permit). 5. TotalEnergies also clearly wanted to invest more in LNG, they already started last Fall. 6. Cancelling offshore leases requires the gov to pay companies back for the cost of the lease. But the gov can get around this by indefinitely *suspending* the lease instead. So effectively they don't have to pay them. 7. What DOI is here doing is saying "you can have your money back if you agree to cancel your lease and invest in LNG instead." --> TotalEnergies will get up to $928M for investing in LNG. 8. The premise of this deal is partially based in government abuse: DOI is implicitly threatening to withhold the needed offshore permits and also threatening to force TotalEnergies to wait years to get their lease money back (if ever). 9. Withholding the permits is misuse of the law but TotalEnergies probably wanted to get out of building offshore wind anyway. The "suspending" instead of "cancelling" trick is also misuse but (unfortunately) it's been common for decades. 10. What's weird is there was likely no reason for DOI to give TotalEnergies the money through this cancellation strategy. If TotalEnergies already wanted to invest in LNG over offshore wind then why did DOI need to give them a billion dollars of taxpayer money?

Like I said. x.com/i/status/20324…

On March 23, 2026, at the Siemens Tech Summit China, Professor Ni Jun, CATL's Chief Manufacturing Officer and Co-President of Engineering & R&D, shared his insights on AI. He emphasized that "at its core, AI is fundamentally energy-dependent. Without sustainable power solutions, AI's potential will be constrained by its massive consumption. Furthermore, current energy infrastructures are insufficient to support AI’s evolution, as the technology necessitates specialized power performance capabilities." #CATL #SiemensTechSummit #AI #Digitalization #EnergySystems

Here is a bit more about what @AscendElements Eric Gratz will be discussing, this is from the events website. I really wish they would stream or at least offer a on-demand for this.

As a kid, Chuck Norris taught me no matter how bad it looked never give up. Having a supercharger also helps. Rest in peace, Chuck. youtube.com/shorts/sVwWWpK…