Australian Lithium Miner Core Lithium Finalised Its First Auction of Spodumene Ore on the Heels of Pilbara‘s Lithium Concentrate Auction

SHANGHAI, Oct 10 (SMM) - On October 3, Australian lithium miner Core Lithium announced that it had completed its first auction of spodumene ore at $951/mt. The transaction volume stood at 15,000 mt, with an average grade of 1.4%. The cargoes are scheduled to be shipped from Darwin Port in the fourth quarter of 2022.

Core Lithium is an ASX-listed lithium producer that owns the Finniss lithium project near Darwin Port. The average annual production capacity of spodumene concentrate in the Finniss project is about 173,000 mt, which are being supplied to giants in the new energy vehicle industry chain, such as Tesla, Yahua Group (002497), and Ganfeng Lithium (002460).

Unlike the lithium concentrates previously auctioned by Australian lithium miner Pilbara, the products in Core Lithium’s latest auction are unprocessed lithium ore products with low lithium content and high impurity content. Some industry insiders pointed out that the cost of processing this batch of lithium ore into lithium carbonate is at least 400,000 yuan/mt.

This auction followed the footsteps of lithium concentrate auction by another Australian lithium miner Pilbara on September 20, whose prices hit $6,988/mt FOB, up 10% from its previous auction and 459.04% from its first auction last year.  

The prices of battery-grade lithium carbonate rebounded to 500,000 yuan/mt on September 13, and exceeded 520,000 yuan/mt before the National Day holiday.

Huaxi Securities is pricing in an even tighter Chinese lithium salt market in the fourth quarter when salt lakes in Qinghai will report lower output due to falling temperature while downstream enterprises will be in a rush to achieve annual production and sales targets, which will accelerate the unleash of demand. Therefore, Huaxi Securities believes that lithium salt prices will be able to maintain the upswing and could even hit new highs in the fourth quarter or the first quarter of next year on the back of concentrated downstream stocking activities.