This week, spodumene prices tracked the rapid slide in lithium carbonate, falling nearly US$50/t over the week. With lithium carbonate becoming more volatile, upstream miners are facing acute cost-price inversion and are increasingly reluctant to sell, insisting on higher offers. Meanwhile, downstream refiners and traders are back-calculating ore prices using “futures minus processing cost”; their psychological bid levels keep dropping. Because earlier hedge positions are now releasing profit, these buyers’ restocking appetite has actually strengthened. Enquiries are brisk, but with bid-offer expectations misaligned, actual deals remain thin.
For lepidolite, as lithium salt prices keep falling, non-integrated refiners face growing loss-making risks and are turning more cautious, lowering their target prices in tandem with carbonate. This week the leading miner released material via a centralized auction; however, the auction prices were well above what downstream buyers could accept, providing little guidance to the spot market and intensifying the wait-and-see mood.
