“Young” George, minor metals, and the one type of LinkedIn message I always respond to

I can't be the only one who receives a huge number of unsolicited messages on LinkedIn. The king of spam is undeniably the low-effort recruitment messages. I'm definitely not here to pass judgement on the recruitment industry – that would be pretty tactless, all things considering – but I still occasionally get messages about job opportunities in the lubricants industry, despite the fact my total experience in lubricants was a 6-month internship at Shell 10 years ago. And a close runner-up would have to go to the endless sales pitches for all things battery related. The slightest mention of "batteries" on your profile is often enough provocation to be drowned in an avalanche of friendly messages pitching cells, packs, testing equipment, cathode / precursor / anode powders, battery metals, disposable batteries, and even mining and manufacturing equipment. Aside from occasionally using this to practice my (very poor) mandarin, I have rarely engaged with these over the years.

But buried amongst the deluge of pictures of mining equipment and adverts for lubricants sales roles based in the midlands, you sometimes get something interesting. Journalists or researchers looking for information, people looking to connect and share interesting findings, or - more and more, in my experience - graduates and students who are interested in the world of battery metals.

It’s that last group that I want to talk about – but before I do, I want to explain how I first ended up in the weird and wonderful world of battery and technology metals.

My first exposure to metals and mining

I'd love to be able to claim that I was prescient enough to have predicted the rise in e-mobility and planned my career accordingly. But the truth is that I hadn't even really planned to end up in commodities when I left university, never mind battery metals. Having successfully completed an internship at Shell, I received a call one day from a Shell graduate staffer to let me know that I had been offered a graduate role, and to ask me what role I would like to do within the energy giant. I didn't really have any ideas. Competitive triathlon was my all-encompassing focus at the time, and having just qualified to race for Team GB in the Age Group European Championships, I wanted to take as much time as I possibly could to train for it. So I politely informed the staffer that I would do literally any job that Shell wanted, provided I could have as much time off as possible before joining to allow me to train and compete. She seemed rather taken aback by this, but agreed to the deal. And that's how, after a 6 month break, I ended up on the sulphur trading desk at Shell as a pricing and market analyst.

More than anything, what Shell did for me was to cultivate a passion for commodities. They just made sense in my mind. Unlike other asset classes where the prices of things went up and down seemingly for no reason at all, commodity markets had rules that were followed. Long-term prices are dictated by production costs. Mid-term prices are controlled by the delicate balance of supply and demand. Short-term prices are controlled by inventories and tradeflows. There was an innate sense of value to commodities; you could see the molecules of material flowing across the world, guided by traders and arbitrages, neatly spilling into every crevasse of demand wherever they were needed.

But despite this, I could never really get passionate about sulphur during my time at Shell. It was just a very old-fashioned market, with most material traded in bulk from the oil refinery sector into the fertiliser and acid markets between a handful of established producers and consumers. And as time went on, my focus began to drift towards the bottom of the periodic table. I began to think more and more about all the elements that I had studied so keenly in materials science at university – rhenium, hafnium, cobalt, lithium, tantalum, molybdenum, tungsten, zirconium, the rare earths... I wanted to learn where they came from, and how they went from a collection of sparse atoms sprinkled in the earth’s crust to the integral components in high-tech applications. And that’s how I discovered the illusive world of “minor metals”.

Sadly there weren’t really any “grad schemes” for minor metals, or public job openings for people who were interested in trading them from scratch. So in a final act of desperation I cold-emailed around a dozen metal trading companies in London, to see if any of them would be interested in taking an enthusiastic graduate with a scientific background and zero practical trading experience. In the end I only received one message back. And that is how I came to meet Anthony Lipmann.

Lipmann Walton & Co., Ltd.

Anthony Lipmann is something of a legend in the minor metals industry. Lipmann Walton & Co, which has operated out of a small office opposite Hampton Court Palace in Southwest London for almost 70 years, has probably traded pretty much every single solid element on the periodic table in its history. A large part of the business is based around what Anthony calls the “sweetshop model”; you can call them up, and no matter what it is you’re after – a few kilos of rhenium, a handful of kilos of lutetium, a couple of rods of hafnium – they will have it available for you. This metallurgical sweet shop is now in its third generation of Lipmann management, with Anthony now having retired (although if you ask him, he will tell you that “metal traders never fully retire”). This excellent Bloomberg article gives Anthony’s fascinating career far more justice than I ever could.

Despite his busy schedule, Anthony took the time to personally respond to my email. He politely informed me that he didn’t have any permanent roles available (Lipmann Walton is a very lean enterprise), but said he would be delighted to host me for the day to see his offices and learn how the industry works. And so with great trepidation I donned a suit and tie, pulled a sickie at Shell (if my old Shell manager is reading this then I can only apologise!) and headed down to Lipmann Walton for the day.

Arriving at the firm’s beautiful offices in Hampton Court, Anthony welcomed me with a smile and ushered me into the conference room. “Today’s a good day to learn what the rare metals industry is really like!”, he said cheerfully. “We’re currently on speaker-phone with the Japanese customs authorities about one of our shipments.” What followed was a crash course in all things minor metal-related. I learned the unique supply route for rhenium (“it’s a by-product of a by-product”), and how just 40 tonnes of it were made per year worldwide. I learned about thallium (“nasty stuff; the Victorians used to call it “inheritance powder”) and beryllium (“used in high-flexibility copper alloys; there’s a small amount in all light switches”). I learned about how hafnium is always found in nature bound to its cousin element zirconium, and how the only places you can get hafnium from are nuclear zirconium purification facilities (“there’s only a handful of such facilities in the world”).

But the most important crash course I received was the gossip on who was involved in the trade. Over a generous lunch at the local pub, Anthony metaphorically opened his immense rolodex of contacts to me, and I left Hampton Court that day armed with a dozen potential contacts who might be looking for new blood. One of those contacts was precisely how I managed to get my first job in minor metals, working for a superalloy and minor metals trader based in North Carolina and Sheffield.

“Lipmann University” and “Heppel Community College”

At the time I felt unique to have received such diligent attention from one of the minor metals industry’s most prominent stars. But as my career progressed, I have since learned that I was not particularly special. It turns out that Anthony has a long-standing history of taking time out of his day to help young and enthusiastic people who want to get involved in the metals industry but don’t know where to start. It has happened so often that a few of us have even given it a name: “graduating from Lipmann University”. The graduates of this prestigious institution have certainly spread their wings far and wide, having since become traders, analysts, bankers, consultants and many more. Off the top of my head, CRU, Anglo American, Sumitomo Corporation, Rio Tinto, AMT, Triland, Avon Metals and Masan all currently employ or have previously employed Lipmann alumni. And these are only the ones I know about. I have no doubt that there are many other graduates lurking in the industry, who have at some point in the last few decades been granted work experience, internships and advice from arguably the world’s greatest minor metal trader, in return for simply being interested in his chosen industry.

There is no doubt in my mind that Anthony’s motives for giving so many young people a leg up was mainly altruistic, based out of a simple desire to share his idiosyncratic industry with other enthusiastic minds. But with that said, there’s no denying that he has more than benefited from his network of motivated young people. I can only speak for myself, but on occasions when I receive a call or message from Anthony asking for help on a particular topic, I will always help him find the information he needs. And whenever I hear of anyone in the industry looking to secure rare or minor metals (often through the aforementioned LinkedIn spam), I will always make sure to send them to Lipmann Walton first.

Anthony retired a couple of years ago, and the company is now led by his daughter Suzannah. But the Lipmann University of Minor Metals still lives on with gusto. When I called the Lipmanns to ask their permission for this article, Suzannah was very keen to advertise that Lipmann Walton still has opportunities for work experience and internships for graduates or students who are interested in the world of minor metals. If that sounds like you, then you should absolutely send them your CV via email. And Anthony was quick to stress that they are paid - after all, in his words, “What lesson are you giving a young person if you exploit them?”.

But I would like to finish this article by advertising a slightly lower-quality alternative to Lipmann University: the “Heppel Community College” of battery metals. Given how much I owe my career to a single person taking time out of their day to teach me about metals, I will always do what I can to pass on the favour. So if you’re a student or recent graduate who is interested in battery metals, especially cobalt, lithium, nickel or manganese, then please feel free to reach out. I will do my best to answer any questions you might have on battery metals and what it’s like working in the industry – as well as dish the gossip on who is hiring.

Sadly I cannot offer you a day’s work experience in a prestigious metal trading office, but I am always happy to have a videocall or buy a coffee somewhere in London. And who knows: perhaps it might inspire you to pass on the favour to the next generation of eager graduates looking to get involved in battery and green metals. If we’re going to successfully transition the world away from fossil fuels, God knows we’re going to need to attract all the talent we can get.