The Pilbara Minerals Ltd (ASX: PLS) share price is pushing higher again on Tuesday.
In morning trade, the lithium miner's shares are up 1.5% to $4.92.
As you can see below, this means the Pilbara Minerals share price is now up an impressive 32% since the start of the year.
Can the Pilbara Minerals share price keep rising?
One leading broker believes that it isn't too late to snap up shares.
According to a note out of Morgans, its analysts have retained their add rating and lifted their price target on the lithium giant's shares to $5.40.
Based on the latest Pilbara Minerals shares price, this implies potential upside of 10% for investors over the next 12 months.
In addition, the broker is expecting a maiden dividend of 20 cents per share in FY 2023. This equates to a 4% dividend yield, stretching the total potential return to 14%.
What did the broker say?
Morgans was impressed with Pilbara Minerals' quarterly update, noting that its production beat its forecasts. It said:
PLS grew production 10% qoq and beat our forecast by 10% and Visible Alpha consensus by 15%. Sales volumes were more in line with our forecast (+2%) but pricing was also stronger so revenue beat our forecast by 10%.
In addition, the broker suspects that lithium supply could not be as great as expected due to project slippage. It expects this to support higher lithium prices for longer, which bodes well for Pilbara Minerals and other miners. Morgans adds:
We have rolled through our higher expected prices for spodumene and hydroxide as per our recent update for AKE. We see a trend of project slippage for other lithium producers and therefore think a slower roll off in FY24 towards our long-term price forecasts is more likely.
We maintain our ADD rating given the upside that we see to our target price. The company's growing cash balance gives it options for capital management including buybacks or a special dividend.
