Lithium Australia: Sure beats mining it – sucking millions in lithium and nickel out of old lithium batteries
Lithium Australia Managing Director Simon Linge on 3AW, 2GB & 6PR Bulls N' Bears Report
Listen to ASX-listed Lithium Australia Managing Director Simon Linge talk to Matt Birney on the Bulls N’ Bears Report about Lithium Australia’s lithium battery recycling division that has hit its straps with a record quarterly profit derived from sucking lithium and nickel out of old lithium batteries.
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RADIO INTERVIEW - TRANSCRIPT
Matt Birney - Welcome to Bulls N' Bears brought to you today by lithium technology company Lithium Australia.
Matt Birney - ASX code: LIT
Matt Birney - I'm Matt Birney and I'm joined now by the Managing Director of Lithium Australia, Simon Linge.
Matt Birney - Hi Simon.
Simon Linge - Hi Matt
Matt Birney - Okay so Lithium Australia has been at the forefront of the lithium and lithium battery technology space probably for the best part of a decade. The company has developed a lithium processing method that can process lithium from waste dumps and it is one of the very few companies outside of China to successfully manufacture lithium ferro-phosphate for a new style of lithium battery. The company has also been successfully producing lithium and other metals from recycled lithium batteries via its subsidiary Envirostream.
Matt Birney - Okay Simon, Lithium Australia has worked out how to extract and sell minerals such as lithium and nickel from old lithium batteries and you've commercialized that technology over the last year or two. Tell me about the quarterly gross profit journey of that operation over say the last four quarters starting from say the second quarter of financial year '24?
Simon Linge - Yeah starting there Matt gross profit was about $200,000, gross margin 17 per cent as we moved into the next quarter we doubled that in terms of gross profit to $400,000 and margins at 27 per cent. Really pushed forward in Q4 of last financial year with gross profit at one and a half million and gross margins at 62 per cent and we've continued to build on that in the first quarter of this year with gross profit at $1.7 million and 70 per cent gross margin, so really scaling.
Matt Birney - What sort of old batteries are we talking about here? Are they car and truck or small appliance or something else?
Simon Linge - We collect a range of batteries out of the 377 tonnes we've collected in the last quarter. 300 of those were what we would describe as large format typically out of energy storage or buses or e-mobility in some way shape or form.
Matt Birney - Where are you getting all the batteries from?
Simon Linge - We've got a a range of contracts with large OEMs, battery makers. Good example of that is we signed in this last quarter a contract with BYD auto the largest EV manufacturer in the world and with Infinitev who repurposed batteries and they give us the cells and batteries that don't work and they give those to recycle and there's a couple of examples there, plenty of others.
Matt Birney - What's the business model here? What exactly do you sell? Who do you typically sell to and how do you get paid?
Simon Linge - We work with principally OEMs and battery makers and they give us the end of life batteries to recycle. We charge them a service fee for that up front and then we also have, make money and sell, the waste streams or the value streams, they're extracted, so black mass MMD which is the stuff that has all those critical minerals in that are used to go back into batteries.
Matt Birney - Sure beats mining it.
Matt Birney - Simon Linge from Lithium Australia.
Matt Birney - Thanks for joining me on Bulls N' Bears and remember we're only here to give you information, not advice, which you should of course seek independently.
Matt Birney - I'm Matt Birney and this is Bulls N' Bears.
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