This week, spodumene prices remained basically flat WoW. Overseas mines continued to offer high quotes, but with lithium chemical prices facing resistance in their upward trend, buyers negotiated with a strong price suppression attitude. Coupled with occasional small-volume transactions below $880/mt CIF SC6, overall market demand showed weak purchase willingness for high-priced lithium ore. In the domestic market, most spot lithium ore originates from regions like Africa. While domestic spot ore quotes have slightly higher production costs compared to market lithium chemical prices under the sustained high prices of Australian ore overseas, overall inquiries and transactions performed better domestically than overseas.
This week, lepidolite prices rose slightly WoW, mainly due to two high auction transaction prices last week that pushed up the overall market price, with other lepidolite concentrate suppliers raising their quotes accordingly. On the demand side, with production resuming and non-integrated lithium chemical plants generally holding low inventories of lepidolite concentrates, there has been strong willingness for restocking recently. As a result, lepidolite mines have remained at relatively high price levels in the overall market.
In the short term, lithium ore prices are expected to trend downward along with lithium chemical prices.
