2240 dollars per ton! The lithium mine market may go crazy again because of this "sky-high price".
On Tuesday afternoon, the spodumene concentrate auction of Australian leading lithium mining company Pilbara on its BMX electronic platform attracted the attention of many market participants. Pilbara's first spodumene concentrate on the BMX platform sold at a high auction price of $1315 a tonne on July 29th, when the lithium concentrate was quoted at $740m / tonne, which "shocked" the market and then fuelled the lithium mine price boom.
After that auction, the rise of lithium products accelerated. During the two auctions, the price of lithium concentrate rose from $740 to $990, the price of electric carbon rose from 90, 000 yuan to 144000 yuan, and the price of lithium hydroxide rose from 97500 yuan to 144000 yuan. It can be said that the Pilbara auction price contributes to the lithium price.
Therefore, the second auction held by Pilbara today attracted more market attention.
The auction of Pilbara lithium concentrate, with a quantity of 8000 tons and a grade of 5.2-5.5%, ended at 16: 00:00 on September 14. Before this auction, the mainstream forecast price of the market was in the range of $1650 to $2000 / ton, but the final falling hammer price broke the ceiling of the market's imagination again: $2240 / ton!
Haitong Securities Metal Group analysts pointed out that based on the auction price of US $2240, considering sea freight, the production cost of lithium salt is more than 150000 yuan, and considering the reasonable profit of the lithium salt factory, the corresponding lithium price will definitely exceed 200000 yuan.
According to the spot price of SMM, the average spot price of battery-grade lithium carbonate on Sept. 14 is 14100 yuan / ton.
The main reason why the influence of Pilbara auction is so obvious is:
1. Due to the low lithium price in the past two years and the scarcity of capital expenditure on the resource side, there is a shortage of resource-side production projects in 21-22. Under the background of the outbreak of demand for new energy vehicles, the contradiction between supply and demand of lithium resources is acute.
2. In the already insufficient supply of lithium ore, most of the supply is locked by the long Association and cannot be sold freely. And Pilbara is the largest supplier in the bulk market. Under the auction system, Pilbara has a strong control over lithium concentrate.
3. The volume of concentrate in each Pilbara auction is very small, the first auction is 10, 000 tons, and this auction is in 8000 tons of lithium concentrate, equivalent to less than 1000 tons of lithium carbonate equivalent. This means that large companies are not willing to participate in the auction, while small factories lacking mines or speculative funds can cause great disturbance to the auction price.
4. Pilbara's Ngungaju mine will resume production in 21 years, pushing up the bulk price is helpful to the pricing of its resources after resuming production.
Guotai Junan Nonferrous team commented that the current lithium concentrate is difficult to obtain, lithium ore prices have hit new highs. The auction price is higher than expected and has far exceeded the high price of lithium ore in 16 / 17. It is optimistic that the lithium price will rise further in the follow-up, which is good for the target of owning lithium mineral resources.
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