This episode is a panel discussion that took place at the Arkansas Lithium Innovation Summit in October on the missing midstream.

The panelists were:

David Park, CEO of Standard Lithium

Dan Blondal, CEO of Nano One

Hugh McDonald, Arkansas Secretary of Commerce

Bhageerath Vadhi, Geologist - Ford Motor Company

Topics:

What is the midstream?

Why does it matter?

The cathode bottleneck

China's current dominant position

Margins

Nano One's LFP advantage

Washington's perspective and role

Emphasizing energy storage over EVs

Geopolitics

What does success look like?

There are three guests and a cameo appearance in this episode.

Sam Pigott and Carlos Galli from Lithium Argentina are joined by Jason (Xiaofeng) Luo from Ganfeng. The cameo appearance is from Kelly O'Brien the head of investor relations at Lithium Argentina.

Topics:

History of the LAR - Ganfeng partnership

Consolidating assets - PPG

The "marriage" & synergy

Ganfeng's view of Argentina

RIGI

The success of Cauchari

The team

Ganfeng's recent market growth comments

The incentive price

Components of demand

When does Argentina become #1 in brine?

Funding PPG

Ganfeng's Marianas project

Water issues

DLE

Rapid fire

This solo episode was recorded November 19th 2025 in Los Angeles while I was attending Benchmark Week.

Topics:

Ganfeng on supply / demand / price

Canaccord's take on the market

BESS

Exxon's comments on lithium

The midstream

DLE

Rio's lithium future US Congress on China's predatory pricing

Liontown's spod auction

IGO's Kwinana woes

The state of Arkansas is poised to be the next great lithium brine province. This week at the Arkansas Lithium Innovation Summit I interviewed Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders along with Allie Kennedy Thurmond and Jason Muller from Equinor, Ashu Sharma from Aquatech and Jesse Edmondson of Standard Lithium.

Topics:

Why Arkansas?

Angela's story

Going downstream

No DLE, no Smackover

US policy gaps

Stockpile options

Building value chains

The Smackover Lithium culture

Force multipliers

Aquatech's business

Process optimization

Li-Pro & Pearl

What's next for the Summit?

Emilie Bodoin is the founder and CEO of Pure Lithium. The mission of Pure Lithium is commercializing a rechargeable lithium metal battery.

Topics:

Improving how lithium metal is made

Simplifying the battery supply chain

Why making EV batteries is not the company's goal

Speed

LFP and vanadium

Partners

Mentors

The commercialization plan

Why solid state batteries aren't a panacea

Rapid fire

Chris Berry aka "the voice of reason" is the founder and President of House Mountain Partner. Ernest Scheyder is a journalist and the author of "The War Below."

Topics:

The US critical metals strategy

The US trend towards state capitalism

Picking winners

LAC/GM and the DOE loan "deal"

Free money??

The market bottom

The OPEC analogy to lithium

Lithium's version of fracking

DLE's future role

Lithium as a "party animal"

The long road to a circular economy

Rapid fire

Ron Mitchell has one of the lithium industry's most impressive resumes having worked for Talison, Tianqi, and a resource development project. He also chaired the LME lithium and cobalt committee for several years.

Topics:

The challenge of developing resources

De-risking projects

Price

Africa - reality vs hype

Lepidolite - mountains of residue

The beauty of vertical integration

The hard rock cost curve

Incentive prices

Hard rock conversion beyond China

Peak spodumene in Australia

Risk management tools

Issues with spot price

What's next?

Rapid fire

Chris Doornbos is the Founder and CEO of E3 Lithium.

Topics:

Thinking differently about lithium

The Alberta advantage

The Team

DLE

Sorbent flexibility

Timing

Financing options

Price & price supports

The "lithium buyer's club"?

The cost curve

Influencing policy

The critical path

Rapid fire

I provide additional perspective of why I believe the "lithium winter" is over.

Chinese anti-involution measures are a contributing factor, as is continued strong demand growth and less lithium feedstock and chemical inventory in China than many people think.

My guest is Cormac O'Laoire, PhD the Managing Director of Electrios Consultants.

We have a far ranging discussion on the rise of China in the lithium-ion battery space. We cover how China out competed their formerly stronger rivals in Japan and Korea and discuss the current and future state of batteries, NEVs and BESS.

Given recent events we also cover lepidolite in Yichun and brine in Qinghai.