China Lithium hydroxide output in October and forecast for November

In October, China’s lithium hydroxide production reached 21,904 mt, down 9% MoM and 17% YoY. The whole market continued to be in a state of weak supply and demand. On the supply side, due to market factors such as periodic oversupply, the National Day holiday, and a significant decline in OEM orders, many lithium hydroxide smelting enterprises shut down for maintenance during the National holidays, with few of them restarted production after that. Most enterprises only maintained one or two production lines at low levels to delivery long-term orders. Due to economic considerations, causticizing plants experienced a significant decline in production. On the demand side, although the price of lithium carbonate rebounded in the middle of the month, which to a certain extent drove the price of lithium hydroxide to stop falling and recover. Under the weak demand for high nickel, the demand boost was extremely limited, and most downstream links still only maintain at low level of rigid demand procurement. There were only few orders and transactions in markets. SMM predicts that the weak supply and demand pattern of lithium hydroxide may be difficult to change in the short term. Affected by the resumption of some enterprises after maintenance in November, the domestic production is expected to reach 22,320 mt, up 2% MoM and down 11% YoY.