Transcription
Hello everybody, and welcome into Commodity Culture, where we break down commodity markets, sound money principles, and geopolitics, all with the goal of making you a better investor in the commodities sector. My name is Jesse Day. Today is December 12th, 2025, and I'm thrilled to welcome Johnny Kovasovich to the program.
An investor, author, and expert on global energy, Johnny believes that both gold and silver still have a long way to run, and he reveals his strategy for making outsized gains as a speculator in the precious metals mining sector. Johnny also reveals the two metals off the radar of many investors that he thinks will be next to provide outsized returns, including where he's deploying capital to take advantage of what he believes is a generational opportunity in the metals and mining space.
Now, staying on the topic of silver, get your Commodity Culture "Stack Silver, Not Fiat" t-shirt today. This is a design I took a lot of time and effort to make it for stackers, something I would want to wear. Link is in the description below.
And now, strap yourselves in for my conversation with Johnny Kovasovich. Johnny Kovasovich, great to have you back on Commodity Culture. Very excited to chat with you today about the next metals that could be going parabolic as we see gold and silver soaring. But first, of course, I want to discuss the precious metals with you and get your thoughts. Starting with gold. What do you think are the main catalysts that brought us to where we are today? And do you think we're closer to the beginning or the end of this bull market?
>> Huh? Two-part question. Well, we we kind of know how the movie ends already. I mean, why is gold doing so well? Very simple. People are fleeing the US dollar. Governments, corporations, people. Uh, Joe Lunchbox, this is something that's been going on for quite some time and it's catching a little bit of, you know, a lot of momentum, but that's that's a trend that's going to continue with the management and every people have already seen shows out the, you know, out of their ears already on why that's happening. The the question is what's the potential? What's the future? And I think for most of the people watching your show as a junior mining speculator, how much more torque do you have? You know, with respect to gold, if you want to just buy physical gold, it's currently trading at 4,300, somewhere there. Go out to silver, as everyone knows, $64. Um, can gold go to 5,000? I I'd say that's probably more of a when than an if question. Can can gold get to maybe 8,000 or 10,000 like people have been suggesting? You know, a little bit more of an if than a when, but how much money are you going to make if you buy physical gold? You know, you're not you're not doing it to get rich. You're doing it to preserve your spending power. Okay? But if you're talking about speculating, and that's what I am. I'm a speculator. You're not not buying gold for speculation purposes. You're going to buy something in one of three buckets. You're going to buy a gold producer, you're going to buy someone that's a developer, or you're going to buy a drill hole play. As we all know, the most money is going to be made in a drill hole play. But that is not a when. That's if they discover gold. If they don't discover gold, all the money they raised goes to money heaven, you know, and it's going to be a trail of tears. Very difficult game. I followed it for a very long time. I mean, if you ask me how long have I followed gold, um, you could go back, if you open up a British dictionary and and flip switch it to the section I, and look up idiot, there will be a glaring picture of Gordon Brown, the man who sold a good portion of of Britain's gold, as they called it, the brown bottom, through the advice of the IMF. And, you know, I followed gold carefully since then, and this is a trend that's going to continue. It's a soap opera that never ends. Like Coronation Street that started in 1960, that's that soap opera that takes place in a hamlet in Manchester, England. It just runs forever. We are going to continue following it. The question is for a speculator, where can you make extra, you know, the torque, you know, we want to how do you make three, five, 10 times your money? Very difficult on physical gold. Uh, difficult on a producer, albeit I think they're still cheaper now than they were uh when gold was 200 because it's going to be a it's a better business and the as they as they report their quarterly in the next uh sort of uh two three quarters I think they're going to be very good numbers on a on a development play you're looking a little bit more it's if there's a buyout if they find more gold in a new zone or something like that can you make 10 times your money on a developer difficult drill hole play but it's not easy not easy lot of risk there.
>> Well, silver, of course, has shocked many and greatly outperformed gold, clocking in new all-time highs around $63, $64. As you mentioned, it has risen over 100% year to date. We're now hearing all of the calls for triple-digit silver. Do you think that's a possibility or is some caution warranted at these levels?
>> Well, it was playing catch-up. Everyone follows this um gold silver ratio got to 100. It was everyone was saying it's going to close its gap. It certainly has. We're about 67 to to one now. The silver to gold ratio. Uh, oddly enough, silver is more expensive than a barrel of oil. Rarely in in the last sort of hundred years has that happened. It's a case, I think, where oil too, not for fundamentals, but just for the optics there, the the trade, the speculator value. I think we could see oil actually appreciate. But where is this ratio going to end? You know, geologically speaking, or how much silver we extract, the ratio should be much lower. Someone like Keith Keith Numar I will tell you should be something like maybe 7 or 10 to 1 or 15 to 1 where we for a long time have looked at a 50 to 1 ratio and that's important for various reasons for all you silver speculators why 50 to 1? We look at it when when I was on a quick glance when I want to compare a silver deposit to a gold deposit we use the 50 to 1 ratio which means if someone tells me they have a a a silver resource with 100 million ounces of silver I do the quick math and say, okay, 50 to 1, that's roughly like a 2 million ounce gold deposit. And if we're looking before we wanted to see something at 2 g a ton time 50, you need to have a silver deposit that's say something like 100 g a ton. And that gives you the equivalence. Either 2 million ounces gold running 2 g or 100 million ounces running at 100 g. Those grams per ton can actually be lowered. Now, we're now looking at a world of 1 g a ton gold. And if it's an oxide gold deposit, substantially lower than a than a gram a ton. But silver, something in the 50 to 100 g a ton. You know, those ratios I think matter. And if we see a world where gold could trickle up to a $5,000 an ounce. If we can get to a 50 to 1 ratio, you're talking silver with an $80 handle. Now, speculators drive these markets. I think the market wants to see $100 on silver. So, can it get to 100 in a world where gold gets to 5,000? Yes. But I will strongly submit to people if and when that ever happens, you are going to have a radical correction cuz the same speculators that see it there, it touches, you're going to see it roll back very hard. So, first milestone will be something like silver with an like an 80. Can it get to 100? Maybe speculators will push it there and then you're going to see something. You can see silver go back 30%. As Rick Rule has commonly said, the the the bull market from 1970 to 1980, you have a couple times where silver corrects 30, 50%. Expect it. It's going to happen. Embrace that volatility, which means you need to be a seller of the shares at times when you've made a lot of money. Have that discipline because it never stays, you know, up forever. It's going to have a couple corrections, but we are like Coronation Street. This is going to last a very long time. Why people are fleeing the US dollar, we've lost a lot of spending power in the US dollar and you're going to continue to see, I think, you know, gold and silver climbing from the bottom left to the upper right of your screen for for the years to come.
>> I love that Coronation Street reference. My mom used to watch that show all the time growing up. I got the theme music playing in my head now. Um, that that's a great connection in terms of how long you think this is going to last. But you know, a lot of people are looking at what metals are next to experience the type of run that both gold and silver has. And a lot of people believe that we are in a commodities super cycle, that we are starting to see a shift into hard assets, and they're wondering what could be next. Now, lithium is very interesting because it went absolutely parabolic in 2022 and has since experienced a dramatic crash and it's been in a sideways consolidation. This year, however, it started to show signs of life. Is this recent uptrend in the price confirmation that it's game on for the lithium market again?
>> Yes. And and and I'll tell you why. Let's fortify that with facts and fundamentals. You know, I want to be speculating in the things if I use a sports analogy. Who's going to win the Super Bowl next year? Not 10 years from now, but next year is the setup. there. You know, lithium and battery tech is something that is going to be very strong. Uh, the big balancing is going to happen in 2026. I mean, the market will not be oversupplied anymore. We can get to that later. And you're going to be undersupplied and you're going to enter lithium or battery tech. Let's not call it mania or boom, but let's call it a very good market in 2026 and 2027. I like this setup because you know the things that I've speculated in the past and I I create companies, Jesse. I do one every 5 years. I like the when story, not the if story. When is you you sleep a lot better at night. It's a lot safer and you can still make 10 times your money with a when story. When I founded Copper Bank, which is now Faraday, it IPOed on my birthday uh in 2014. It was always a when story, not if. The guys before me spent over $100 million, big discoveries, lots of engineering, great metallurgy, 100% ownership. What we needed is a higher copper price. So, I was always saying, not if, I don't need to drill more and find more gold or wait for a buyout right away, but when the copper price would go higher and when the market would understand, you make a fortune. And successful speculating has everyone else agree with you later. That's what that's what a speculator does. So is what Ben Graham does on yesterday on my Twitter. People can look it up at @kovv. I put a very famous wisdom from Ben Graham and as he calls it for investing. I'm a speculator but successful speculating has you buy from pessimists and you sell to optimists. I have for the last couple years been buying lithium shares. And I believe in that optimistic market, I'm going to be selling lithium shares to people when when they realize some of the facts we're going to talk about later because it's not an if story. It's, you know, uh, a scientist will tell you that they work only in facts, only with evidence. And when the lithium market crashed, and we're going back 18 months, two years from now, when he really started to see that, and the lithium price, just to give some background, went from about 8,000 a ton to 80,000. Never deserved to be there. Complete hype, speculation, whatever, whatever you want to call it. And it crashed in this misery market that you correctly stated going down to about 8,000. Okay. Never never deserved to be there either. But in that time, I was looking at the evidence and you you look at that and you look at people were forecasting what could happen and what might happen. All that. Now we can look at data. And what does a scientist do? You make observation after observation on and on but eventually you have to start drawing conclusions. And the conclusions I'm drawing with respect to why this is such an interesting trade right now is based on evidence and fundamentals. It's no longer prognostication. The the demand growth of batteries and lithium particularly 30% CAGR. No one saw that coming. This was a tiny market. Before it was 200,000 tons then 300,000 tons. The biggest lithium company in the world, Ganfang, their chairman, has come out a few weeks ago and says, "We the market's going to grow to about one 1.45, 1.5 million tons." Actually, I'll be more more correct. He said it was going to be 1.45. It's now going to be revised. 2025 is going to come in as a 1.55 million ton market. So, next year, he says it's going to grow 30%. We're going to grow to a 2 million ton market. So if if the market was oversupplied by 150,000 tons, you can kiss that goodbye. All of that is going to get balanced and you're going to have scarcity again. And yet again, you're going to see between 20 and 30% CAGR growth rate in batteries. And when the batteries are consumed, the lithium is consumed. And then we go into the four acronyms. Why people where and how do you want to follow and how do you want to play this? And where is the 10-bagger in this battery tech you know, um, very good market 3.0 as I'm calling it.
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Well, when it comes to battery tech, you know, a lot of people are pointing out that EV sales penetration was not nearly as large as predicted perhaps 5 years ago. Um, there's been some initiatives from governments to try to push EVs and now we've seen the Trump administration kind of rally against that and say, "No, we want internal combustion engine vehicles as well. We want the consumer to be able to choose." Obviously, China is a very interesting story. We did an entire podcast about this topic and the future of energy in general. It's 3 hours long. Um, but it's incredible. You gave a a big presentation, their slides. I'm going to put a link in the description below for people who want to check it out and get the full picture. But talk to us about today battery tech, how it's positioned, where is it being used? Because if the EV penetration is not as great as thought, there was government subsidies involved as well. Where are we right now when it comes to battery tech? And and why do you think it's still important in today's world?
>> I don't live in a sound chamber, Jesse. I don't sit there and I have a profound, you know, greater than 20,000 hours of studying energy. Um, went to BCIT, graduated in 1996, and as I said, I don't live in a sound chamber. I don't sit there and and feel good and get all pumped up by people that agree in what what how I see it. I am obsessed with following, reading, listening, wise people who disagree with me. What am I missing? What what what what can change this whole narrative? Because when the facts change, so must I. John Maynard Keynes, he said, and what do you do, sir? You have to change. I'm only fortified more and more. So battery tech, why China has went so this is a very important uh if I need to illustrate this so people this is a profound statement. Final energy usage globally has always it's been about 20% electricity or electrification and global energy consumption has climbed about 2% per year since the since after World War II, but the role that electricity played was about 20%. And then about 10 years ago, as I said, prognostications were saying that we're going to climb to 50, 50% by about 2040 and everyone laughed and they laughed globally. Rest of world, not China, is 22% now. So they would say epic fail. We have not went from fossil fuels, nothing's changing. Did you know that China today, as we speak, is 30% final energy usage is electrification? They reinvented the wheel. More than 50% of car sales, light vehicle sales, going on trucks and buses are electric. This is the world's largest automotive market. One-third of more than one-third of all vehicles globally are manufactured and consumed in China. This is now happening. Not United States, less so in Europe, but the rest of the world, Thailand, Indonesia, places like that are playing catch-up. This is all about batteries. It's about harnessing the magnificence of electricity, the way we create it, the way we transfer it, and and for final energy usage, the way it's utilized and in the future, the way we harness it in the role of batteries. We are going into countries like China becoming electrostates. Billions upon countless billions of batteries are going to continue to be made, and we eventually are going to play catch-up in the United States and Europe. Europe is already probably 2x more um penetrated uh than is America, but nothing can stop it. No God, no government, no no nothing. It's it that is what's happening. And if you understand these batteries and how they've evolved and what's going to make them possible, this is a when story, not if, but when the greater market gets gets acceptance of this. When the global investors see that it is growing by 20 and 30%. And when you have the next scarcity, which is inevitable, not an if, but a when story, and when you have the price of lithium doesn't have to go parabolic like it did 80,000, but if we just get to 20,000, it is game on. And there is a a a huge quantum that's going to be made by people that own the highest of highest quality lithium uh and shares in the other stuff that goes into these battery techs. And that's why um it's way better than people think. Do not take the headline that EV sales have been bad in the United States. Yes, they were. It's mainly due to charging and stupid vehicles, but look at the world leader. We're at one-third of the action. And if we add the rest of the Asian nations, over 50% of the action, and they've already made the pivot. It's not no longer saying this is a conclusion. This is already occurring. It's happening. Either you're going to get run over or or go with the tide. You choose. I'm going with the tide.
>> Well, not all lithium deposits and extraction methods are created equal. I know you believe direct lithium extraction is the future for that metal. Talk to us about what separates DLE from other extraction methods and why you feel it's superior. We have a lot of lithium in the world. Lithium is relatively abundant. And this is one of the um the cons that old old guard, crusty guard and mining, they stay away from lithium. We've seen that movie play before. But now we're, as I've already alluded, we're going to grow to about 1.9, 1.2 mill, sorry, 1.9, 2 million tons next year, 2026. We get to a 3 million ton market in the next two or three years. When that happens, it becomes the sixth or seventh most important commodity in that list. Starting with iron ore, gold, aluminum, copper. Lithium's there. Better pricing mechanisms and you're not going to have price collapses and spikes because when it's a 300,000 ton market and someone puts 20 or 30,000 tons of production times three online, markets imbalance. When we're at 3 million tons and your average lithium project for feasibility out there in the world, the ones that have been contemplated is around 20,000 tons, rounding error, will get absorbed by the market. So if lithium is relatively abundant, why am I so bullish on it? How can you make money there? You know, um I believe technology is is what's driving this and direct lithium extraction is the future. You're going to get your lithium instantly. You get it in typically from abandoned oil well infrastructure. And guess who's leading the charge, Jesse? It's not your usual suspects in mining. No, it's big oil and gas. They've blessed this. It's a business of the future, including Rio Tinto. They re um constituted Rio Tinto's business, iron ore, copper, and aluminum lithium. 15% of Rio Tinto's future business after 2030 is lithium. But it's all about DLE, direct lithium extraction. Takes eight to 10 times less water, takes less energy. There's effectively no footprint at surface. You've got the buy-in of governments. When you look at Governor um Huckabee Sanders of of of Arkansas and you look at Premier Daniel um Smith in in Alberta, this is a future pillar of the Alberta economy. You're not arguing with anyone. And oil and gas. They're stating Exxon is not fooling around here. They're entering lithium vis-à-vis direct lithium extraction with a goal of being in the lowest quartile of all lithium production in the world because it takes 8 to 10 times less water, less energy. You get the lithium instantly and it'll go into a lithium product of the future. I am going to bet and speculate with oil and gas. This is why uh I I started Lithium Bank. Uh Lithium Bank is a company that I've suggested to you to have a deep dive with management. Rob Shuchuk, Paul Matissek, Kevin Petgrass. Have all three of them come on and they'll really explain to people why Lithium Bank is going to be one of the most important companies in my view in lithium in the next 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 years. And me as a speculator, we as owner operators, it only has 62 million shares out, Jesse. So, there's a reason you could see a stock like Lithium Bank go from .7 to, you know, in my view, something with multiple dollars on it. When it IPOed four years ago, it came out at $2 a share and it's a 10 times better business now. So, what they need is to have a feasibility study. And they've already announced they they received $3.9 million from the Alberta government in this low lithium price environment to keep going, move the chains forward. will help you pay for the feasibility and the work that they've been doing with Schlumberger, that they just did their last resource estimate. Schlumberger operating the world's largest um DLE pilot plant, you know, this is the world's largest oil and gas service provider. So it's the it's the gold seal, you know, so I think that's a story where you put all the setup comes together. It's, you know, when they complete the feasibility study and when global investors see that oil and gas industry is incorrect and when you see more and more of these it's in nascent stages becoming commercially, you know, at scale, all of a sudden sudden the interest goes to who's in the lowest quartile of production costs in lithium. Does it matter? There's such a thing in the oil business as the best situated barrel of oil and the worst situated barrel of oil. But it's all going to come down to getting the lithium instantly with less water, less energy, less footprint, and at the low if you're in the lowest quartile of production, who's going to look at people in the upper quartile or in the upper half of production costs? Not going to happen. It's all going to drift to the path of least resistance and that's DLE in my view.
>> Well, we'll definitely try to get Lithium Bank management on the show to dive deeper into that. But another commodity I want to discuss when it comes to battery tech that almost nobody's talking about is phosphate. So, talk to us about the macro setup for phosphate and how it relates to lithium in the battery market.
>> There are if people are going to get serious about batteries and they're they're saying, "Okay, I'm It's interesting. This guy's talking a big game here, but I'm going to follow it. You know, if people can wrap their heads around and say, "Okay, it's no longer an if story, it's a when story, and we see this changing." If you want to accelerate and not have to follow a million different things, you need to follow four very important acronyms. Okay, number one is CAM, cathode active material. We're not interested on the anode. When you talk about these chemistries, NMC, LFP, all these guys, we're talking about CAM, cathode active material, and we've seen now the global buildup of batteries is LFP. That's the second acronym. Lithium iron phosphate. It's all about the L, which is going to come from DLE as I already told you about. That's the third acronym, direct direct lithium extraction. Okay? So, lithium, you're you have to look at that and vis-à-vis a company like Lithium Bank. But the P, it's all about the P understanding that and from that's purified phosphoric acid and that is PPA. Okay, four acronyms: CAM, LFP, DLE, and PPA. So I've suggested that you have a deep dive with John Pilacqua at First Phosphate. And I believe you've already organized that discussion and you're going to be talking with him. He'll give you the the the the really long story. Now, as someone that's followed energy, I spent an hour and a half with John on the phone and I was still, you know, yearning for more questions. This is a story of the future. Just in very quickly, the igneous type of phosphate deposits is what you're looking for because you can get this PPA purified phosphoric acid um almost all of it converts. Predominantly this is coming from um phosphate from sedimentary type deposits which are more abundant. You're thinking Morocco and and um China and other places. That's not what you need. You need the purified phosphoric acid. And what his company, First Phosphate, has close to infrastructure in Quebec, very supported by government and on a fast track to production with partners like Prayon, who outside of China is the world's largest producer of PPA. And when you're talking about LFP batteries, what you need is iron, lithium, iron, phosphate, purified phosphoric acid. And this is what PON makes. They make the purified phosphoric acid. So he'll talk about the partnerships they're doing and how they want some of their igneous rock, but they're also going to give them some of the technology. So you're not so worried about, well, where where's this all going to come from? Fascinating story. So for me as a speculator, the when story, Lithium Bank for lithium vis-à-vis DLE, and First Phosphate, PHOS, lots of cash in the till, doing a 35,000 meter drill program which will end mid-year next year, 2026, and both companies are aiming to have a feasibility on the street done by a best-in-class um independent party 12 months from now with a lot of news in between. Now, that's one hell of a speculation and that's why I like these two stories. So, when when you have those two interviews ready with the with the Lithium Bank team and with John Paselacqua, I think people could take a get keep your pen and pencil and paper handy. Write a lot of notes and follow these two stories because that's how you're going to be able to follow it. Be current like you are on Coronation Street and know when the changes are happening.
>> Well, I'm going to be interviewing John in just a couple days. Um, it's going to be going up actually the day after this interview goes live. So everybody watching today, tune in tomorrow for that interview with John Paselacqua. We'll dive deeper into everything Johnny was discussing regarding phosphate. Now, we've been hearing a lot about sodium ion batteries recently as potentially a superior solution when it comes to battery tech. Could sodium batteries disrupt the entire thesis you've laid out here?
>> Very important question, John. Uh, sorry, Jesse. Very important question, Jesse. And I've been doing a lot of work on this and diving into the details and you you get a lot of mixed messages out there. People that are actually dissecting the batteries and this has come from CATL, Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited. They make like 37, 38% of all the batteries in the world. They are very important. And this was a proclamation that they made that they're now going to be commercializing and putting sodium ion batteries or sodium iron phosphate. It's still a good story for phosphate. Uh, you would be negative on lithium if you see this proliferate, right? And what's going on here? Can this disrupt all what I just talked about? Let me break it down for you. So with these batteries, energy density is one important factor and cost is another important factor. So where they are right now with the with CATL's um sodium ion battery is at on a on a Wh per hour basis the energy density is about 165 to 175, whereas with LFP you're about 200, 210, and with the NMC batteries you're about 250 to 300, and then you have these um condensed batteries which is sort of a combination battery or 4 to 500. So in the telly if you break this down where we are in the next 3 to 5 years, this is how this is going to play out if all their claims are correct because it's interesting they come up with the claim of the sodium ion battery CATL and then after that came another claim of we've now increased the energy density of the LFP battery. They've also reduced the cost on a cell level of the LFP battery. Then they've come out with another proclamation talking about solid-state batteries and the future of CATL is going to be the lithium metal battery. So it gets a little bit confusing. You wonder where's the future here? Is is something disrupting another thing? It's going to be all of them and how this plays out. Not this year or next year because the way we make batteries and all the hundreds of billions of dollars that has went into the to the global infrastructure to make more batteries. Remember 65 to 80% of batteries are are now LFP. All that buildout is going to be made with LFP batteries. And the CAGR growth rate of lithium is going to be between 20 and 30% at probably all the all the way through the early 2030s. And then with that huge lithium market, the big base, you can't keep growing at 20 and 30%. Think of the Chinese economy when it was growing at 12 and 14% in the early days. When Chinese economy got to 15 trillion, it can't grow by 14% anymore. It's this big monster and it's just growing at 5, 6%. The same is going to happen with the growth of lithium 20, 30% and it's going to go to 15 but off a huge base. The energy density tells you all. You're effectively going to be using sodium ion batteries for city vehicles, little things that don't need a lot of energy density, aren't going a big distance. You're going to be using LFP batteries for mass market cars. If their energy density is now at 210 uh on a 1 hour basis. Their cost on a on a cell and pack level is now fallen again. So to the holy grail of getting like this really has gotten to the point where everyone thought we needed to be to make these cars cheap and effective. Of course they are. We see them all over Europe and all over the world. Chinese electric cars with LFP batteries. And then you have the NMC battery, much more expensive. Costs are still falling with an energy density of 250 to 300 for the more expensive, more deluxe, longer range vehicles. You know, it's going to be from all all all sides. But the speculation that I'm talking about Jesse right now where I I say I've been buying from pessimists and I aim to sell to optimists. This speculation of DLE lithium bank becoming a when story, the CAGR growth rate of lithium growing 20, 30% um First Phosphate and people finally getting it that these people have a very special type of deposit. This all manifests itself in the year 2026 and 2027. Am I going to be speculating in lithium batteries after that? If we see the joy that I think we're going to get, I'm going to be doing something else. I buy low and sell high or I buy from pessimists, I sell to optimists, you know, and when people start agreeing with me, you know, later. That's not the point for for the context of what I'm talking about. So, sodium ion is is a thing. It's real. It's important. It's going to augment a piece of the billions and billions of batteries that do need to be built. And I don't see them, at least not from what we see right now, especially when these batteries are taken apart. They are not going to disrupt the buildout of LFP and right now for the next sort of three, five, seven years. After that, we'll see. But not for the speculation that I talked about here in this show for the for next year in 2027.
>> Well, for people who want to follow your work, uh, where's the best place to go? I know you've got a book out there. Maybe tell us about that. You've got a website, you've got an X account. Where should people go to follow you?
>> I don't post a lot on X anymore. I do follow it. It's a It's something that we're I don't understand how the I think they hide a lot of um messages. Like people don't even see the message. You kind of have to go to the person's profile and then look at his replies and answers. But the the book I put out in 2016, I I reread it last year. Still very current. It's about the future. It's about better appreciating or understanding the Chinese market. 1.4, 4 billion people uh over 400 million millennials, 100 million of which have graduated university, mostly in STEM fields, science, technology, engineering, math. If you like these trends and you want it to be told like an adventure and a story, read my book. It's on Audible, it's an ebook, it's a great gift. But I but I really do believe people will get a lot of value out of that. And on top of that, you can look at me uh on Twitter and I'm continuing to do my interviews with the sort of seven or eight people out there that um care to share information with me. Otherwise, I'm in the European time zone and we have our own catchups probably twice a year, Jesse. We're in the We're only a couple of uh couple of maybe flight away, right? You're in Belgrade still, right?
>> Yes. I'm in Novi Sad actually. I'll be moving to Subotica soon, but yeah, I'm I'm I'm pretty close.
>> Perfect. And I think if any more questions or can I end it off with one last little uh statement?
>> Yeah, please do.
>> JP Morgan once said, and I I I like closing off interviews like this. He says, "Go as far as you can see. When you get there, you'll see further." And we are at a very important time with battery tech because 18 months ago, it was precarious. It was a bit nervous. Was there going to be people weren't buying EVs in America? What was going to happen with demand growth? We're at the end of 2025 now. Conclusions are it was better than we thought it was going to be. And any kind of oversupply is already out the window. That's going to be resolved in 2026. And the biggest data point, the final one, Chile was always the largest producer of lithium. Did you know in 2018, Australia passed Chile? Pegmatites, spodumene, they are now or were 2x more lithium was produced in Australia than was Chile. But that's not the takeaway. When the lithium price collapsed, there was only one profitable mine of all that production that came online. Greenbushes. The mine that's been there forever. So, you knew it wasn't an if. It was when when the lithium price rebounded because you could not have the entirety of Australian lithium production not profitable. It wasn't a if, when. And now the next when is when the market, the general market keeps capturing this. And you know it's already there because the world's largest ETF, the lithium and battery tech ETF has went from $31.50 in April to $65, more than doubled. Big money has taken an interest. It's another barometer. And um we'll see each other in the next few months. And I hope people do enjoy the uh discussion with uh the Lithium Bank team and with John Paselacqua at First Phosphate, which is a fascinating story when you better understand PPA, DLE, LFP, and of course CAM, cathode active material. Thank you for joining us today. Our sponsor Arc Silver Gold Osmium has some great prices on gold and silver bullion products. They are displayed on screen right now. These are while supplies last and subject to change. So reach out to owner Ian Everard today at 307-264-9441 or by email at ian@arc-sg.com and make sure to tell him that Commodity Culture sent you. And of course, represent Commodity Culture in style. The new "Stack Silver, Not Fiat" t-shirt link is in the description below, backed by a 100% quality guarantee. And I'll see you guys in the next episode. Commodity Culture is a series on commodities and natural resources. If you would like to see more, be sure to subscribe and hit the bell notification so you're always up to date with the latest episodes.