Copper And Lithium Compete For The Title Of “New Oil“

Copper And Lithium Compete For The Title Of “New Oil“

Share to Linkedin Oil remains king of the energy sector, for now, but there's a conga line of pretenders poised to claim the crown including copper which Goldman Sachs hailed last week as "the new oil". The reasoning of analysts at the investment bank is that copper will play a key role in the rush to replace vehicles with internal combustion engines with electric vehicles (EVs) as well as being essential in everything else which uses electricity. Copper cathode heading for export from Chile's giant Escondida mine. Photo by Oliver Llaneza ... [+] Hesse/Construction via Getty Images Whether it's going too far to award copper the title of commodity king is debatable, but what's not arguable is that another metal has also been nominated as top dog in the energy world. Lithium, a key ingredient in batteries, was actually named as "the white petroleum" several years ago in the first wave of enthusiasm for EVs. Neither copper nor lithium will replace oil for a long time, though it is highly likely that as the rush to supersede fossil fuels with electricity produced and then stored in battery metals, oil will find itself under increasing pressure. Compounding the threat to oil