[SMM Analysis] Spot Lithium Carbonate Market Structure Shifts Toward Spot Orders, Convergence of Futures and Spot Prices Boosts Trading Volume

Published: Jan 9, 2026 18:39

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Since September 2025, the better-than-expected performance in the EV and ESS markets has, to some extent, driven the lithium carbonate industry into a destocking phase, supporting the rise in futures and spot prices. Driven by capital and market sentiment, optimistic expectations for industrial demand led to a "soaring rally" in lithium carbonate futures prices. However, downstream acceptance of high-priced raw materials remained relatively limited, resulting in a certain price spread between futures and spot prices. Affected by this, most downstream enterprises maintained production through long-term agreements and customer-supplied increments. Currently, finished product inventories at upstream smelters have decreased from over 20 days in H1 2025 to around 5 days, while raw material safety inventories at downstream cathode plants have shortened from two weeks to less than 10 days.

Previously, the LC2601 contract price approached a high of 145,000 yuan/mt, with the maximum price spread against the spot price reaching 20,000 yuan/mt. Recently, the futures and spot prices have shown a converging trend. After entering the delivery month for the LC2601 contract, the futures-spot price spread gradually narrowed. Today, the settlement price for the LC2601 contract was 140,460 yuan/mt, while the SMM battery-grade lithium carbonate index was reported at 138,842 yuan/mt. The price range for battery-grade lithium carbonate was 137,000-143,000 yuan/mt, with an average price of 140,000 yuan/mt.

The prices of far-month contracts are, to some extent, determined by market expectations regarding future supply-demand and price trends, thus exhibiting certain differences from spot prices.In contrast, as near-month contracts approach delivery, they are increasingly influenced by the actual supply-demand dynamics in the spot market, ultimately displaying a convergence characteristic where futures and spot prices align.

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