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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 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, [6] 2019, [7] [8] and 2020 [9] - the UK House of Commons [10] and the Canadian House of Commons. [11]
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”. [12] 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. [13] 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 [14] .
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 [15] [16] .
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 [17] was recognised with Benchmark’s inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award [18] at Benchmark Week 2023. Notable recipients include Nobel Laureate, Dr M. Stanley Whittingham, [19] who’s scientific discoveries resulted in the creation of today’s lithium ion battery.
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% was from Tesla and Chinese EV maker BYD production 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).
Coda Automotive Inc. was a privately held American company headquartered in Los Angeles, California. The company designed and assembled lithium-iron phosphate (LiFePO4) battery systems for automotive and power storage utility applications, and electric cars. Miles Automotive partnered with Hafei and Qingyuan Electric Vehicle to establish Coda Automotive as an affiliate company. The name CODA comes from the musical term for the concluding passage of a piece of music. Coda Automotive has said that it chose the name because its electric vehicle technology represents an end for combustion engine vehicles, and the start of the electric vehicle era.
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.
Imperial Valley Geothermal Project is a complex of eleven geothermal power stations located in the Salton Sea Geothermal Field, along the southeastern shore of the Salton Sea in the Imperial Valley of California. It is the second largest geothermal field in the United States after The Geysers in Northern California.
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.
Since 2011 the European Commission has assessed every 3 years a list of Critical Raw Materials (CRMs) for the EU economy within its Raw Materials Initiative. To date, 14 CRMs were identified in 2011, 20 in 2014, 27 in 2017 and 30 in 2020. These materials are mainly used in energy transition and digital technologies. Then in March 2023 Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed the Critical Raw Materials Act, "for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the European Council establishing a framework for ensuring a secure and sustainable supply of critical raw materials". At the time, Europe depended on China for 98% of its rare-earth needs, 97% of its lithium supply and 93% of its magnesium supply.
Oil Price Information Service (OPIS) is a price reporting agency which provides information that is used for commercial contracts and trade settlement related to petroleum, gasoline, diesel, ethanol, biodiesel, LP-gas, jet fuel, crude, natural gas, petrochemicals, recycled plastics, refinery feedstocks, residual fuel, and kerosene. It is based in Rockville, Maryland and has offices in New Jersey, Houston, Texas, Minnesota, and internationally in Sweden, Romania, Singapore, and Japan.
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.
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.
Redwood Materials, Inc. is an American company headquartered in Carson City, Nevada. The company aims to recycle lithium-ion batteries and produce battery materials for electromobility and electrical storage systems. Redwood Materials was reported to have a valuation of about $3.7 billion as of July 2021.
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.