Spot Lithium Prices Surged to 1.9 Million yuan/mt

Supply shortage has been common in the new energy sector after the Chinese New Year (CNY) holiday. Among them, lithium salt is in palpable supply deficit, which has result in significant growth in prices.

Ferrous production prices dropped as a whole last week on the back of political intervention, with iron ore prices led the losses.

Cobalt sulphate prices rose 7.1% month-on-month (MoM) in January 2022, driven by the rising costs of raw materials (prices of refined cobalt and cobalt intermediate products added 5.1% and 3.7% respectively).

According to SMM Prices, the intraday domestic battery-grade lithium carbonate was offered between 374,000-382,000 yuan/mt, an average 378,000 yuan/mt, up 6,000 yuan/mt or 1.61% from yesterday.

Overseas cobalt prices were relatively stable during the Chinese New Year (CNY) holiday, and there were few cobalt salt transactions heard in the market. And the prices remained unchanged from the pre-CNY holiday level.

The output of cobalt sulphate in January will be about 5,900 mt in metal content, and the output of cobalt chloride will stand at 4,400 mt in metal content.

Although the downstream stocking is about to end, the spot stainless steel prices in Foshan rose more than expected last week.

Domestic output of LFP stood at 410,000 mt in 2021, up 179% year-on-year, according to SMM statistics.

The rare earth market faced great supply challenges on the back of surging demand thanks to the rapidly development sectors including new energy vehicles (NEVs), wind power generation, etc. in 2020-2021, which are the key application fields of rare earth products, fuelled by the global carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals as well as the upgrading level of consumption and recognition of energy reservation and emission reduction.

The coke prices were raised by 3 rounds in 10 days, with a combined increase of 500 yuan/mt. The spot and futures prices of coking coal rose as well.