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

Since September 2025, the better-than-expected performance of 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. 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 the raw material safety stock at downstream cathode plants has 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 showed a converging trend. After entering the delivery month of the LC2601 contract, the futures-spot spread gradually narrowed. Today, the settlement price of the LC2601 contract was 140,460 yuan/mt, while the SMM battery-grade lithium carbonate index stood 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 dynamics and price trends, hence differing from spot prices. In contrast, as near-month contracts approach delivery, they are increasingly influenced by actual supply-demand conditions in the spot market, ultimately exhibiting a convergence characteristic where futures and spot prices align.