[SMM Weekly Review] This Week in the Hydrometallurgy Recycling Market: Black Mass Transactions Sluggish, Prices Fall Steadily (Jul. 6, 2026 – Jul. 9, 2026)

SMM July 9 News:

Raw material side, lithium carbonate, nickel sulphate, and cobalt sulphate prices all fell steadily this week.

This week, by ternary, LCO, and LFP material types, the LFP hydrometallurgical side: taking LFP electrode black mass as an example, its current price is 6,850-7,250 yuan/mtu, with prices declining steadily WoW from last Thursday's transactions. This was mainly due to lithium carbonate prices in the doldrums this week, which further weighed on LFP black mass prices with a slight downward adjustment. Currently, LFP battery black mass prices are 6,450-6,750 yuan/mtu, and the price spread with electrode black mass has gradually widened. This is because many LFP refurbishment enterprises are actively producing, mainly purchasing LFP electrodes, thereby expanding the demand landscape for waste LFP electrodes. Consequently, some LFP hydrometallurgical enterprises have switched to buying LFP battery black mass, or are purchasing LFP electrode black mass at extra-high prices; Ternary and LCO side, nickel and cobalt payables for ternary electrode black mass stood around 77-79%; This week, downstream purchasing sentiment was subdued, as most enterprises had completed their just-in-time procurement by month-end and, faced with falling salt prices, chose to mainly adopt a wait-and-see approach; For pure cobalt and high-cobalt scrap materials, lithium payables remained temporarily stable, while the sustained drop in cobalt sulphate prices, coupled with cold demand from downstream LCO cathode plants, led to generally lackluster purchasing enthusiasm from upstream hydrometallurgical enterprises.

SMM New Energy Research Team

Wang Cong 021-51666838

Ma Rui 021-51595780

Feng Disheng 021-51666714

Lu Yanlin 021-20707875

Zhou Zhicheng 021-51666711