Fastmarkets Lithium Battery Critical Materials 2026

Fastmarkets lithium battery critical materials 2026 convenes June 22–25 at the Red Rock Casino Resort & Spa, Las Vegas — the 18th edition of an event that has grown from a specialist lithium conference into the largest annual gathering of the battery raw materials supply chain. More than 1,250 senior attendees from 550+ companies across 40+ countries are expected, with expanded programming covering cobalt, nickel, manganese, graphite and rare earths alongside lithium for the first time.

Fastmarkets Lithium Battery Critical Materials 2026 — Key Details

What’s New in 2026

The 2026 edition marks a substantive programme expansion beyond lithium. Cobalt, nickel, manganese, graphite and rare earths each have dedicated upstream sessions — a direct response to how battery supply chain professionals now track multiple commodities simultaneously rather than lithium in isolation. CMN covers the cobalt price and lithium price as separate market trackers for exactly this reason: procurement and investment decisions in battery materials are rarely single-commodity.

Two co-located events run alongside the main programme and are included in a full-event pass. Defence & Aerospace Strategic Materials 2026 is a one-day programme on June 22 covering critical and strategic materials underpinning defence and aerospace supply chains — a timely addition given the US government’s accelerating focus on domestic battery and magnet supply chains. Battery & Energy Storage 2026 runs June 23–25 as a dedicated summit for grid-scale ESS buyers, utilities, developers and infrastructure financiers. The three events share the same venue, exhibition floor and evening receptions.

Programme Highlights

The main plenary opens with lithium market outlook and price discovery — supply and demand forecasts broken down by region, including the Americas, China, Europe and emerging markets, alongside sessions on lithium derivatives and hedging instruments. Fastmarkets produces the benchmark assessments that attendees use for procurement and long-term supply planning; price methodology sessions give direct access to the team setting those benchmarks.

National security programming is new for 2026. The keynote “Securing America’s Battery Future: US Strategy for Lithium & Critical Materials” anchors a broader strand covering geopolitics, US-China tariffs, the EU Critical Raw Materials Act and regional supply chain buildout. This connects to one of the most actively tracked themes in critical minerals policy — the strategic competition over battery input commodities that CMN has covered through profiles such as MP Materials’ $400m DoD deal.

Technical programming covers direct lithium extraction (DLE) commercialisation, graphite and anode policy, and project finance and capital markets for battery materials investment and M&A. The Battery & Energy Storage stream addresses grid-scale storage procurement, project bankability, chemistry selection across LFP, NMC and solid-state technologies, and the role of AI and data centre power demand as an accelerating driver of storage deployment.

Why Critical Minerals Professionals Should Attend

The attendee base spans the full battery raw materials chain: miners, refiners, recyclers, OEMs, cell manufacturers, battery material traders, energy storage developers, investors and government representatives. More than 75% of attendees in prior years have cited networking as their primary reason for attending — at 1,250+ delegates, the density of decision-makers across procurement, investment and supply planning is not replicated at any other event in the battery materials calendar.

Seventeen prior editions have established a track record of offtake agreements, investment mandates and supply contracts being negotiated on the margins. For upstream producers and processors navigating lithium price volatility or tracking the cobalt market through a period of structural oversupply, the commercial intelligence gathered in one week in Las Vegas carries measurable value. The defence stream is a specific draw for companies engaged in US government supply chain programmes — the same policy environment that drove the DoD’s battery and magnet contracting push visible in CMN’s coverage of MP Materials.

Registration

Tickets start at $2,699, with group rates available for parties of three or more and five or more delegates. A full-event pass includes access to both the Battery & Energy Storage 2026 summit and the Defence & Aerospace Strategic Materials programme — no second registration is required. Full details and registration are available via the Fastmarkets event page.

Las Vegas in the last week of June represents the single week in the battery materials calendar where the upstream supply chain — miners, refiners, traders — convenes in the same room as the downstream buyers making storage procurement decisions. For critical minerals professionals tracking the 2026 conference schedule, the registration window is open now. Supply contracts and investment mandates negotiated here shape market dynamics through the second half of the year. IEA data on critical minerals demand provides relevant market context for attendees preparing for the sessions on battery raw material supply security.