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Industry | Commodities, critical minerals, lithium ion batteries, electric vehicles |
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Founded | 2014 |
Founder | Simon Moores |
Headquarters | London, UK |
Website | https://www.benchmarkminerals.com/ |
Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, also known as Benchmark, was founded by Simon Moores in 2014.
Benchmark is the world's foremost prices, data and intelligence provider for the lithium-ion battery and electric vehicle supply chain offered through a variety of subscription services.
The data and intelligence provided by Benchmark is used to settle billions of dollars of supply chain contracts and build critical mineral supply chains that feed the energy transition. [1]
Specialising in independently assessing prices and supply chain data for the energy transition, Benchmark is an IOSCO-assured Price Reporting Agency (PRA).
In August 2019, the company was awarded the highest International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) assurance, known as Type 1 Reasonable Assurance by Ernst & Young (EY), for its lithium prices. [2]
In 2021, Benchmark was awarded the IOSCO accreditation by PwC for all of its key battery raw materials of lithium, cobalt, nickel and graphite - the first time ever such an accreditation was awarded individually for each. [3]
The company became the world's only PRA to set Type 2 IOSCO standards across all battery raw materials in 2023. [4]
In 2023, private equity fund Spectrum Equity purchased a 20% minority stake in the company, in a deal that assessed Benchmark as the world's most valuable, pound-for-pound publisher in the commodity space compared with competitors such as Fastmarkets, S&P Global Platts, WoodMackenzie and CRU.
The deal was led by London-based Cardean Bell acting as financial advisors for a deal reported by Reuters to value the company at around $500m in November 2023. [5]
Benchmark expanded its energy transition ecosystem offering with the acquisition of Rho Motion on 25 June 2024.
Reuters reported: "The combined company will have a staff of approximately 250, Benchmark said, and compete with S&P Global (SPGI.N), privately held Fastmarkets and others. [6] "
Benchmark advises global policy and governance, with CEO Simon Moores having testified to the US Senate Committee for Energy & Natural Resources on three occasions - in 2017, [7] 2019, [8] [9] and 2020 [10] - the UK House of Commons [11] and the Canadian House of Commons. [12]
During his 2019 testimony to the US Senate, Moores coined the declaration “we are in the midst of a global battery arms race in which the US is presently a bystander”. [13] The phrase “global battery arms race” became the moniker for the electric vehicle megatrend.
In 2024, Benchmark was recognised by King Charles III on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's recommendation, becoming a recipient of The King's Awards for Enterprise in the category of International Trade. [14] These awards are considered the most prestigious business awards in the UK. United States Senator Joe Manchin was a special Guest of Honour at Benchmark's Giga USA 2023 and 2024. [15]
Moores declared at Giga USA 2024: “The Inflation Reduction Act will go down in history as the legislation that changed everything. Senator Joe Manchin will go down in history as the man that made it happen.”
At the same event, Dominic Raab, the Former Deputy Prime Minister of the UK, called for more private and public sector partnerships to drive forward the critical mineral economy into the 21st Century. [16] [17]
Benchmark enables the most critical decisions of the energy transition by providing independent prices, data and market intelligence services:
Benchmark is the world's most regulated and independent Price Reporting Agency (PRA) that specialises in the electric vehicle (EV) battery supply chain. Benchmark Price Assessments are used by the industry for supply contract settlement, indexation and price risk management.
Benchmark Forecasts provide a long term outlook for supply, demand, prices and costs to assist strategic planning. Benchmark's market forecast coverage spans an array of energy transition materials, midstream components, battery cells and recycling.
The company's research into Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) standards covers ESG performance analysis of critical mineral supply chains and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) expertise.
Benchmark partners with industry participants to conduct bespoke advisory services to support strategic decisions.
Presentations, networking and dealmaking are facilitated across Benchmark's conferences worldwide. The Benchmark World Tour hosts a series of free investment seminars focused on financing the energy transition. The Benchmark GIGA conference series holds regional events in Europe, Washington DC and Asia Pacific every year.
Benchmark's Lifetime Achievement Award recognises those that have made the biggest impact on the energy transition ecosystem.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger [18] was recognised with Benchmark's inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award [19] at Benchmark Week 2023. Notable recipients include Nobel Laureate, Dr M. Stanley Whittingham, [20] whose scientific discoveries resulted in the creation of today's lithium ion battery.
An electric vehicle (EV) is a vehicle that uses one or more electric motors for propulsion. The vehicle can be powered by a collector system, with electricity from extravehicular sources, or can be powered autonomously by a battery or by converting fuel to electricity using a generator or fuel cells. EVs include road and rail vehicles, electric boats and underwater vessels, electric aircraft and electric spacecraft.
S&P Global Commodity Insights is a provider of energy and commodities information and a source of benchmark price assessments in the physical commodity markets. The business was started with the foundation in 1909 of the magazine National Petroleum News by Warren C. Platt.
Argus is an independent provider of price information, consultancy services, conferences, market data and business intelligence for the global petroleum, natural gas, electricity, emissions, biofuels, biomass, LPG, metals, chemicals, fertilizers, agriculture and coal industries.
The lithium iron phosphate battery or LFP battery is a type of lithium-ion battery using lithium iron phosphate as the cathode material, and a graphitic carbon electrode with a metallic backing as the anode. Because of their low cost, high safety, low toxicity, long cycle life and other factors, LFP batteries are finding a number of roles in vehicle use, utility-scale stationary applications, and backup power. LFP batteries are cobalt-free. As of September 2022, LFP type battery market share for EVs reached 31%, and of that, 68% were from EV makers Tesla and BYD alone. Chinese manufacturers currently hold a near monopoly of LFP battery type production. With patents having started to expire in 2022 and the increased demand for cheaper EV batteries, LFP type production is expected to rise further and surpass lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxides (NMC) type batteries in 2028.
An electric vehicle battery is a rechargeable battery used to power the electric motors of a battery electric vehicle (BEV) or hybrid electric vehicle (HEV).
Cobalt is a chemical element; it has symbol Co and atomic number 27. As with nickel, cobalt is found in the Earth's crust only in a chemically combined form, save for small deposits found in alloys of natural meteoric iron. The free element, produced by reductive smelting, is a hard, lustrous, somewhat brittle, gray metal.
The electric vehicle industry in China is the largest in the world, accounting for around 58% of global production of electric vehicles (EVs) and more than 1.5 million exports in 2023. In 2023, CAAM reported China had sold 9.05 million passenger electric vehicles, consisting 6.26 million BEVs and 2.79 million PHEV. China also dominates the plug-in electric bus and light commercial vehicle market, reaching over 500,000 buses and 247,500 electric commercial vehicles in 2019, and recording new sales of 447,000 commercial EVs in 2023.
Material criticality is the determination of which materials that flow through an industry or economy are most important to the production process. It is a sub-category within the field of material flow analysis (MFA), which is a method to quantitatively analyze the flows of materials used for industrial production in an industry or economy. MFA is a useful tool to assess what impacts materials used in the industrial process have and how efficiently a given process uses them.
Gigafactory is a generic term that refers to a manufacturing facility where components and products associated with electrification and decarbonization technologies are produced.
Automotive Energy Supply Corporation (AESC) is a manufacturer of lithium ion batteries for electric vehicles established 2007 as a joint venture between Nissan, and Tokin Corporation. Since 2018 Chinese company Envision is a strong partner in the joint venture.
Lucid Group, Inc. is an American automotive and technology company that makes electric vehicles and supplies advanced electric vehicle powertrain systems. The company is headquartered in Newark, California. In September 2021, the company began producing the Lucid Air sedan at its factory in Casa Grande, Arizona. The company expects to begin production of its second model, the Lucid Gravity SUV, in late 2024. Lucid also supplies and develops powertrain technology to other automakers, including Aston Martin.
Fisker Inc. is an American automotive company founded by Danish automotive designer Henrik Fisker and his wife Geeta Gupta-Fisker.
Usage of electric cars damage people’s health and the environment less than similar sized internal combustion engine cars. While aspects of their production can induce similar, less or different environmental impacts, they produce little or no tailpipe emissions, and reduce dependence on petroleum, greenhouse gas emissions, and deaths from air pollution. Electric motors are significantly more efficient than internal combustion engines and thus, even accounting for typical power plant efficiencies and distribution losses, less energy is required to operate an electric vehicle. Manufacturing batteries for electric cars requires additional resources and energy, so they may have a larger environmental footprint in the production phase. Electric vehicles also generate different impacts in their operation and maintenance. Electric vehicles are typically heavier and could produce more tire and road dust air pollution, but their regenerative braking could reduce such particulate pollution from brakes. Electric vehicles are mechanically simpler, which reduces the use and disposal of engine oil.
Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited, abbreviated as CATL, is a Chinese battery manufacturer and technology company founded in 2011 that specializes in the manufacturing of lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage systems, as well as battery management systems (BMS). The company is the biggest EV battery manufacturer, with a global market share of around 37% in 2023. The company is headquartered in the city of Ningde in China's Fujian province.
Huayou Cobalt Co., Ltd primarily operates as a supplier of cobalt and its associated products, such as cobalt tetroxide, cobalt oxide, cobalt carbonate, cobalt hydroxide, cobalt oxalate, cobalt sulfate, and cobalt monoxide. The company is headquartered in the Tongxiang Economic Development Zone of Zhejiang, China.
Simon David Moores is a British businessman and entrepreneur, specializing in the critical minerals, lithium ion battery and electric vehicle (EV) industry.
The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) is a landmark United States federal law which aims to curb inflation by possibly reducing the federal government budget deficit, lowering prescription drug prices, and investing into domestic energy production while promoting clean energy. It was passed by the 117th United States Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden on August 16, 2022.
Vulcan Energy Resources is a lithium and renewable energy producer, specializing in the production of lithium with a net-zero carbon footprint.
The electric vehicle supply chain comprises the mining and refining of raw materials and the manufacturing processes that produce batteries and other components for electric vehicles.