China’s refined nickel output dropped 0.21% from March to 13,000 mt in April. Operating rates across nickel smelters remained unchanged on the month at 59%, down 7 percentage points from a year ago.

After visiting a number of first-tier lithium companies, SMM found that compared with the third quarter of last year, the current lithium prices almost doubled.

Domestic battery-grade nickel sulphate continued to be in short supply in January 2021, and prices of battery-grade nickel sulphate were on the rise.

Shanghai base metals were mostly higher on Wednesday morning as investors waited for the release of China's latest benchmark lending rate. Meanwhile, their counterparts on the LME also rose for the most part.

Silicon prices of various grades started to decline after a short period of stability in December 2020. The pressure on the supply side began to appear after the demand fell with high stocks of downstream raw material.

Nonferrous metals on both SHFE and LME declined across the board on Tuesday morning after shares on Wall Street pulled back overnight from all-time highs.

China's new energy vehicle market demand has grown rapidly, leading to stronger demand for ternary and iron-lithium materials. The global supply of nickel and cobalt raw materials is tightening, and the increase in downstream demand will support the rise of lithium prices in 2021, said SMM’s senior cobalt-lithium analyst Miranda Mei.

The 10th Secondary Lead-acid Battery Industry Summit 2020—held by SMM—took place today, at which SMM senior Pb analyst Xia Wenming gave a speech on the theme of “How China lead market will fare in H2 2020 on the backdrop of oversupply”

This is a roundup of China's base metals output in September 2020, from an exclusive survey of key producers by SMM analysts.

China’s copper cathode output shrank in July as some smelters conducted maintenance to deal with shortage of copper concentrate.