Lithium is not rare.
From Mining.com, July 4:
The lithium market has been in turmoil with dramatic price swings over the last five years as demand from electric cars take off and global supply growth struggles to keep up.
In its quarterly report released on Monday, the Australian government said it expects spodumene prices to decline slightly from an average of $4,368 a tonne in 2022 to average $4,357 a tonne in 2023 as the precipitous decline from record spot prices in the second half of last year take time to feed into long-term supply contracts.
However, 2024 will see a dramatic drop-off in contract value for Australia’s hard rock miners with prices declining nearly 40% year-on-year to $2,740 a tonne on average during the year and fall further to $2,149 a tonne in 2025.
That compares to an average of just $671 a tonne over the three years to 2021 according to the Department of Industry, Science and Resources. Some 96% of Australian exports are destined for China....
....MUCH MORE
If interested see:
Elon Musk Said Lithium Mining Is Not A Bottleneck, Lithium Refining Is; And He Thought... (TSLA)
...we should do that.
"Electric vehicle battery makers test a future without lithium"
"How China is winning the race for Africa’s lithium"
"Chinese Lithium Finally Ticks Up After Five-Month Slide"
World Bank: "Commodity Prices to Register Sharpest Drop Since the Pandemic" (special focus: metals)
Reuters "Exclusive: Chinese lithium producers set price floor as demand evaporates, sources say"
You may have noticed lithium becoming unloved and unwanted:*
Chinese yuan per ton, from Trading Economics
And from Reuters, March 31:
China's top lithium producers agreed this week to set a floor price of 250,000 yuan ($36,380) per tonne of lithium carbonate, six people familiar with the matter said, in an effort to slow a plunge in the price of the battery raw material.
The price was agreed on Tuesday by around 10 companies including Tianqi Lithium (002466.SZ) and Ganfeng Lithium (002460.SZ) that met on the sidelines of a conference in Nanchang in southern China, said one person who attended the meeting and five others briefed on the discussions.
The people declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the topic, which was discussed in a closed-door meeting.
Ganfeng said in a response to Reuters that no discussions on a floor price had taken place.
"Ganfeng always insists that product prices should be determined by the market, and will never take the initiative to control prices to influence the market," a company representative said in an email.
It added that no company in the industry has such capabilities....
....MUCH MORE
- "Electric vehicle battery makers test a future without lithium"
- "Lithium prices in China halve in just four months"
- "Iran discovers world’s second largest lithium reserve"
- U.S. Geological Survey: Lithium 2023
- "Lithium price slide deepens as China battery giant bets on cheaper inputs"
- "Lithium Stocks Crashed. Now We Know Why. What It Means for Tesla, EV Battery Stocks"
- "Lithium's Plunge Is Pitting Cathie Wood Against Sector Veterans" (ALB)
- "Lithium Bonanza: China Battles West for Raw Material of the Future"
- "Vulcan Energy to mine 60% more German lithium than planned"
- "OPEC Cartel Has Nothing on China’s Clean-Energy Monopoly"
- "Risk and Reward in South America’s Lithium Triangle"
- Batteries: "Red-hot lithium price rally cools as China’s BYD flags surplus"
And hundreds more, use the 'search blog' box, upper left, if interested.
Here's the last year's price action, yuan per tonne. It appears the cartel is holding together with the price above their 250,000 yuan reference price but supply is coming onstream.
From Trading Economics (also on blogroll at right):
307,500 last.
