54% of Equity of Sichuan Lithium Mine was Auctioned for 2 Billion! Is the Lithium Shortage an Industry Consensus?

SHANGHAI, May 24 (SMM) - On May 21, the auction of 54.2857% equity of Sinuowei Mining in Yajiang, Sichuan, which took six days and five nights, finally finished. The starting price was 3.3529 million yuan, and the price increased by nearly 597 times finally sold at 2 billion yuan.

It is reported that the auction went through 3,448 bids and attracted 980,000 onlookers, which shows its popularity. According to the confirmation of auction transaction issued on May 21, the buyer is Tan Wei, who has signed the confirmation without specific identity.

According to public information, the Dechelongba lithium mine is located in the north-east of Yajiang County, Ganzi Prefecture, Sichuan Province. It belongs to the Mika spodumene mining area. The mine reserves are 18.14 million mt, with an average grade of 1.34%, which is a super-large-scale lithium mine.

SMM believes that the reason why this auction was able to achieve such a high price is that, on the one hand, the efforts of enterprises to ensure the supply of resources have gradually increased amid the consensus on the shortage of resources. At present, the overall development of lithium mines in Sichuan is relatively low. The main production maily comes from the Mika and Yelonggou lithium mines under Rongjie and Shengxin Lithium Energy. In addition, the spodumene mine in Lijiagou is expected to be put into production this year. On the other hand, the intervention of capital can also accelerate the mining of lithium ore.

According to the SMM spot price, the recent spot price of lithium metal has continued to decline to 3 million yuan/mt. The price of lithium metal was temporarily stable today. Regarding the price of lithium in the future, SMM believes that the price of lithium is expected to remain stable in the near future.

Meanwhile, before the auction was settled, at 15:00 pm on May 24th, Pilbara, which had previously experienced four online auctions, will also hold the second lithium concentrate auction this year. The audition has a total of 5,000 mt auction targets, which is the fifth auction in the company's history.

Although one sells mines and the other sells spodumene, the auction price of the lithium concentrate, which has repeatedly hit record highs before, has always been called the guidance of the global lithium concentrate prices trend. SMM will continue to pay attention to the auction situation to provide timely follow-up analysis.