About Jerry Masters
Albemarle CEO Kent Masters has discussed the company’s strategy for meeting rising lithium demand, driven by electric vehicle growth. In January 2023, Masters said the company expects volume growth even in a recession, driven by EV adoption, and that it forecasts lithium prices remaining relatively flat. He stated that the EV market is growing and that the transition is happening consistently, though at different levels in different regions. Masters noted that Albemarle has a portfolio of projects and may face challenges in some but can deliver on others, aiming for the middle to end of its production range.
In October 2022, Masters said the company is investing globally in Chile, Australia, and China, and is beginning to invest in the U.S. He described plans to build a facility in the Southeast to convert lithium from the ground into lithium salts for EV batteries, with the full supply chain in the U.S. Masters stated that the company has been working on permit data for a year and, if things go as anticipated, expects to get material from these facilities by early 2027. He said lithium is a small part of an EV’s overall cost and that he cannot predict prices, but that the supply-demand imbalance is likely to persist for an extended period.
Source: AI-verified profile updated from Jerry Masters's recent appearances.
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Transcript (12 segments)
I
Interviewer0:11
It was about some of these grants and what it was going to take to get to Michigan, which they still consider themselves the center of auto production. How do you frame what's going on with investments and lithium's ability to keep up with it?
J
Jerry Masters0:24
Yeah, so the grants are helpful and helping us do that, and we're investing all over the world as the industry is, and that's really moving now towards the U.S. So, the industry has been making big investments. We're investing in Chile, Australia, China today, and we're starting to make those investments in the U.S., and we're pushing to keep up with the industry. It's a big ask for the industry, but it's happening.
I
Interviewer0:51
Right. How does North America investment compare? You say it's sort of falling in China. Europe is starting to ramp up and then North America after that from an EV standpoint, so there will be strong demand. Everyone wants a local supply chain to the extent possible. Fortunately in the U.S. we have resources we can leverage. Europe is a little different; they don't have quite the resources. So, they're a little behind North America in that regard.
Just to dig into that a little further, what is it going to take for the U.S. to stand up a full supply chain for lithium mining and refining here?
J
Jerry Masters1:40
Well, we'll stand up the full supply chain but we won't have the capacity. It's going to take a bit of time to build that capacity. In North Carolina we'll be able to take lithium from the ground and we'll turn that into a facility somewhere in the Southeast to convert that to the lithium salts that get used in the EV battery. There's a lot of red tape, not only on the federal level but state and local levels as well.
I
Interviewer2:14
You're right.
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Jerry Masters2:15
We have local, state and federal permits. We've not actually submitted the permits. We've been working on the material, the data for a year now. If things go the way we anticipate, we think early '27 would be the first time we would be getting material from these facilities.
I
Interviewer2:34
To what degree — there's a lot of repatriation of production in North America, whether it's chips or EVs or batteries. And I wonder, does labor keep up? We keep wondering, we keep seeing what a national security imperative it is, but we're already struggling with filling jobs that already exist.
J
Jerry Masters2:54
Yeah, it's a good point. For example, the facility in King's Mountain, 200 jobs and local training. We're doing part of the grant we got will go to a local community college to help build the skills locally we need for the facility.
I
Interviewer3:21
Given this broader conversation we're having, what does it mean for lithium pricing, which is already so elevated? Thus, what does it mean as it translates out to some of these new end markets like electric vehicles?
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Jerry Masters3:35
Lithium is a pretty small part of an EV cost overall. I can't predict what lithium prices are going to do. We've been on a wild ride for the last ten years around that. Demand is pushing. It's gotten tight. They've gone up. We've seen the escalation in lithium. We think the supply/demand balance is going to stay for an extended period of time. We don't see it coming off, but I can't predict more or less where it is for the near term anyway.
I
Interviewer4:15
Kent, it's such a huge story that's going to stay with us for a while. I know the White House is already trying to coin the...
