Vulcan Energy slides to five-year low of $1.25/sh as lithium production still two years away

Vulcan Energy Resources (ASX:VUL) has seen its share price hit a five-year low of A$1.25/sh – and the last time it hit that price was in the first year of COVID when the project first began gaining traction.

After years of intense interest, scrutiny from short sellers, and a recent revival in enthusiasm; in the current overall market doldrums (both that of lithium commodities and the ASX itself), Vulcan is currently back where it was when it started landing on radars.

Of course, it’s done a lot in that time – it’s commenced building its hybrid lithium-and-geothermal-energy plant in Germany, the core value prop that saw Vulcan nearly hit A$12/sh in August of 2021 during the lithium bull rush years, but a year later, was worth above A$6/sh.

Along with a major cooling-off in the lithium commodity market, Vulcan hit what looked like a low in October of 2023, hovering around A$1.30/sh, but managed to shirk those losses off. It’s most recent peak was A$5.63/sh in October of last year.

But, ignoring a small resurgence of interest in the company through May of 2026, when it hit A$4.00/sh – it’s been sinking since.

So what’s going on?

There’s a myriad of reasons as always but it appears the market might simply be thinking about opportunity costs. At the end of the day, Vulcan Energy isn’t set to start producing lithium products until the second half of 2028 – that’s still two years away.

In the meantime, copper has taken off; we’ve had oil and silver ‘meme trades’ come to prominence since then; there’s the US AI trade, microchips, data centre energy providers, data centre builders – despite recent project re-starts in Australia, it’s undeniable the lithium thematic itself has taken a backseat in recent years.

And that, in this finance journalist’s view, is likely the largest catalyst behind Vulcan’s five-year-low on Tuesday. The good news is that the last two years have felt like a blur, so come H2 of CY2028, it mightn’t feel like a long wait at all.

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