The London Metal Exchange expects to launch a lithium contract within the next 12 to 18 months, its chief executive has told Sky News.
Matt Chamberlain said that demand was growing for the metal, due to its use in electric car batteries, making it a logical candidate to be traded on the exchange.
Mr Chamberlain, who was appointed chief executive in April, said: “Lithium is certainly a metal that’s attracting a lot of interest right now driven, clearly, by the electric vehicle story.
“Electric vehicles need batteries and batteries need metals and I strongly believe given the announcements we’ve seen from governments in the last year or so, [that] in 20-30 years’ time, battery metals could be as important for transportation as oil is now.
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“I would like to see a Lithium contract up at the LME within 18 months. I think it’s right that, because we are at the centre of global metals, that we’re right at the forefront of getting that up and running.”
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He pointed out that, thanks to strong demand as a result of use in electric car batteries, the price of cobalt and nickel – both of which are already traded on the LME – has risen strongly this year.
The price of cobalt has doubled during the last 12 months while, earlier this year, the price of nickel hit its highest level since the summer of 2015. The price of copper, another metal used in car batteries, also hit a three year high this week.
Mr Chamberlain was speaking as the 140-year old exchange prepares to unveil its conclusions following a four month consultation with members about the direction in which they want the exchange to go.
The LME, which is Europe’s last remaining “open outcry” exchange, was sold for £1.4bn by its members in 2012 to Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing.
But the sale led to tensions between the exchange and its members after the LME’s new owners sought to recoup the money they spent buying the business – which saw the LME raise its fees by as much as 34% two years ago.
It led to speculation that some members could desert the LME to set up a rival exchange while, in 2015 and in 2016, trading volumes on the exchange fell.
That has partly reflected a decline in demand for industrial metals and an increase in metals buyers buying directly with producers away from the exchange – but has also reflected unhappiness about the way the exchange has been run.
Mr Chamberlain, a former banker who is credited with reducing queues for the delivery of metal from the LME’s warehouses, admitted the exchange had got some things wrong in the past and that this had made a consultation with members necessary. He told Sky News that the LME will, in some cases, be reducing its fees.
But he insisted the “open outcry” arrangement, where traders face each other in a ring and shout orders at each other, was here to stay.
He said it was still the most efficient way of establishing the price of a metal and worked well alongside the LME’s electronic trading platform.
Source: Sky