[concern] stimulated by overseas good news, the Salt Lake Lithium extraction Index jumped high and the company took advantage of it to make a comeback.

SMM Aug. 2: the salt lake lithium extraction index jumped high in early trading, rising more than 8.8% to an all-time high of 1585.27 at one point in intraday trading. At the same time, the performance of individual stocks is also very eye-catching, Jiuwo Hi-Tech, Mount Qomolangma in Tibet hit the daily limit, Tianqi lithium industry, Tibet mining and other stocks rose.

On the news side, Pilbara, Australia's main lithium mine, successfully auctioned the spodumene concentrate at an all-time high price at its first spodumene concentrate auction through its battery material exchange (BMX) on July 29th, followed by a wave of carnival in the domestic lithium mining sector.

At present, China is still facing a shortage of lithium ore, and most of the spodumene concentrate needs to be imported, which means that once the price of lithium ore abroad rises, it will be a big blow to domestic enterprises that need to rely on imports to survive. Therefore, the market has once again turned its attention to the salt lake industry, which is rich in domestic resources and from which lithium ore can be extracted. In the face of the limited reserves of lithium-rich ore resources and strong market demand, it is imperative to develop and extract lithium resources from the rich salt lake brine in the west.

According to the spot quotation of SMM, the average price of spodumene concentrate (6% CIF China) was US $750 / ton as of July 30, up 79.6% for the year.

"Click to see more spot prices of SMM metals.

Recently, Qomolangma in Tibet announced that the company and Jiangsu Jiuwu Hi-Tech have signed a cooperation framework agreement for the pilot-scale study on lithium extraction from Argentine salt lake adsorption coupled membrane brine, agreeing to carry out technical research on lithium resources development in South American salt lakes. It is reported that the purpose of this cooperation is to develop a new lithium extraction technology based on the characteristics of Argentine salt lake brine.

Public data show that Mount Qomolangma in Tibet has two salt lake projects in Argentina, and according to the selection of salt lake brine quality, it is proposed to adopt the most advanced adsorption coupling membrane process and use the technical route of directly extracting lithium from underground brine as raw materials. on the one hand, it can save the traditional salt field construction and directly extract lithium, which is at least 18 months faster than the traditional salt field method, and greatly shortens the construction cycle of follow-up projects. On the other hand, it can also effectively reduce the cost of project investment and construction.

The design recovery rate from adsorption section to membrane section in this pilot test is expected to reach 88%, which is much higher than the traditional lithium extraction process in South America. The pilot test results will provide basic process data for the company to expand production, which is an important step in the follow-up realization of 27500 tons of lithium carbonate / year large-scale production of Mount Qomolangma in Tibet.

Previously, in view of the scarcity of domestic high-quality lithium resources and the fact that lithium concentrates mainly rely on imports, Guojin Securities once commented that combined with technology, cost, capital, policy and other factors, domestic salt lake lithium extraction has stood on the inflection point of large-scale industrialization, and is expected to become the largest source of domestic lithium supply in the future.

In addition, driven by the good news related to the salt lake, * ST Salt Lake, which had been forced to withdraw from the stock market due to huge losses, also announced that it would resume listing in recent days, taking advantage of the east wind of the salt lake lithium extraction fever to make a comeback.

According to its recent announcement, on July 30, 2021, the company received a "decision on agreeing to the resumption of listing of the shares of Qinghai Salt Lake Industrial Co., Ltd." issued by the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. in accordance with the relevant provisions of the listing rules and the deliberative opinions of the listing Committee of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange decided to resume listing of the company's shares from August 10, 2021.

It is worth mentioning that according to public data, * ST Salt Lake sits on about 3700 square kilometers of Qinghai Chaerhan Salt Lake, with a total area of only 5856 square kilometers. Northeast Securities said that Chaerhan Salt Lake in Qinghai is the largest and most abundant soluble potassium and magnesium salt deposit in the country, with broad prospects for comprehensive development. The lake has lithium chloride reserves of 12.04 million tons, ranking first in the country.

Therefore, in this era when mining is king, if ST Salt Lake succeeds in extracting lithium, it will certainly cause a lot of repercussions in the industry.