These assessments are part of the Fastmarkets base metals package.

For more information or to provide feedback on the delayed publication of this price or if you would like to provide price information by becoming a data submitter to this assessment, please contact Grace Asenov by email at: pricing@fastmarkets.com. Please add the subject heading “FAO: Grace Asenov, re: US tin and lead premiums.”

Please indicate if comments are confidential. Fastmarkets will consider all comments received and will make comments not marked as confidential available upon request.

To see all Fastmarkets pricing methodology and specification documents, go to https://www.fastmarkets.com/methodology.

The post Delayed publication of US tin, lead premiums appeared first on Fastmarkets.

The price is a part of the Fastmarkets base metals package.

For more information or to provide feedback on the delayed publication of this price, or if you would like to provide price information by becoming a data submitter to this assessment, please contact Grace Asenov by email at: pricing@fastmarkets.com. Please add the subject heading “FAO: Grace Asenov, re: Brazil P1020 aluminium premium.”

Please indicate if comments are confidential. Fastmarkets will consider all comments received and will make comments not marked as confidential available upon request.

To see all of Fastmarkets’ pricing methodology and specification documents, go to: https://www.fastmarkets.com/methodology.

The post Delayed publication of Brazil aluminium P1020 premium appeared first on Fastmarkets.

This new US graphite flake price will complement an existing suite of natural and synthetic graphite price assessments available in Europe and Asia.

The specifications will be as follows:

MB-GRA-0048 Graphite flake 94% C, -100 mesh, cif US ports, $/tonne
Quality: Flake 94% C, -100 mesh
Quantity: Min 20 tonnes
Location: CIF US ports, excluding Pacific states (Washington, Oregon, California, Alaska and Hawaii) as defined by the US Census Bureau, full container load.
Unit: US$ per tonne
Publication: Monthly, first Thursday of the month, 10-11am US East Coast time.

These prices will be part of Fastmarkets’ Industrial Minerals package.

To provide feedback on this price, or if you would like to provide price information by becoming a data submitter to this price, please contact Grace Asenov by email at: pricing@fastmarkets.com. Please add the subject heading: “FAO: Grace Asenov re: US graphite.”

Please indicate if comments are confidential. Fastmarkets will consider all comments received and will make comments not marked as confidential available upon request.

To see all of Fastmarkets’ pricing methodology and specification documents, go to https://www.fastmarkets.com/about-us/methodology.

The post Launch of price assessment for US graphite flake appeared first on Fastmarkets.

The US Trade Representative recently delayed its final determination on Section 301 tariffs against Chinese imports, including graphite, after some major US automakers called for a reduction in the tariffs or at least a delay until domestic supply chains are more established.

This new US graphite flake price will complement an existing suite of natural and synthetic graphite price assessments available in Europe and Asia.

The proposed specifications are as follows:

Graphite flake 94% C, -100 mesh, cif US ports, $/tonne
Quality: Flake 94% C, -100 Mesh
Quantity: Min 20 tonnes
Location: CIF US ports, excluding Pacific states (Washington, Oregon, California, Alaska and Hawaii) as defined by the US Census Bureau. FCL.
Unit: US$ per tonne
Publication: Monthly, first Thursday of the month, 10-11am US East Coast time.
The consultation period for this proposed launch starts from Thursday August 22 and will end on Thursday September 19. The launch will take place, subject to market feedback, on Thursday October 3, 2024.

To provide feedback on this price, or if you would like to provide price information by becoming a data submitter to this price, please contact Grace Asenov by email at: pricing@fastmarkets.com. Please add the subject heading: “FAO: Grace Asenov re: US graphite.”

Please indicate if comments are confidential. Fastmarkets will consider all comments received and will make comments not marked as confidential available upon request.

To see all Fastmarkets’ pricing methodology and specification documents, go to https://www.fastmarkets.com/about-us/methodology.

The post Proposal to launch price assessment for US graphite flake appeared first on Fastmarkets.

There is virtually no lithium hydroxide produced in the US today, however, and the product has a short shelf life of around half-a-year, he said.

“If you have a cathode plant in the US or Canada, and you have to ship hydroxide from inland China, you can eat up two or three months of shelf life before it even gets to your factory, and then you’ll have two to three months left until it expires, essentially,” Melsert said.

“Companies are very interested in sourcing domestically because we can get it to their plant within a few days,” he said, “and then they get much more time to use it in their facility.”

The battery materials company, based in Reno in the US state of Nevada, announced last month that it had successfully manufactured demonstration-scale quantities of lithium hydroxide at its facility in McCarran, Nevada, using processing technologies to produce lithium products from claystone.

ABTC can now accelerate construction of its commercial-scale lithium refinery at Tonopah, which is expected to produce 30,000 tonnes per year of lithium hydroxide at full capacity, according to Melsert.

ABTC also operates a recycling plant at the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center in Nevada that will have capacity to process an initial production scale of 20,000 tpy of battery feedstock material, with production scheduled to begin “early next year,” he said.

The company has partnered with German battery materials producer BASF and California-based Nanotech Energy, a maker of graphene-based energy products, to “close the loop” for lithium-ion battery production in North America.

“At both plants, we make the same products and sell to the same customers, so we see a lot of synergy in doing both within one company,” Melsert said. “When we sell to big automotive [original equipment manufacturers], they like the recycling side because of the sustainability and the ability to buy back the product, but they love the scale of the primary lithium.”

ABTC’s lithium hydroxide plant is expected to produce more lithium than every other recycling plant in the US combined, Melsert said.

Following ABTC’s announcement that it has successfully manufactured lithium hydroxide from claystone, US Department of Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm visited both of ABTC’s facilities.

“The goal was to talk through the business plan – why this is needed and why this makes sense,” Melsert said of the visit. “Making lithium from clay is first-of-kind, so it’s higher risk than normal, which is why the government stepped in, and we have to de-risk it before private industry steps in.”

Claystone, according to Melsert, is an unconventional resource of lithium, similar to geothermal brine or oilfield brine, versus the two conventional resources – hard rock and brine. The company has received six rounds of funding from the DoE in recent years thanks to its novel approaches at both facilities. The company most recently received more $60 million in tax credits through the Qualifying Advanced Energy Project Credits (48C) program.

Most of ABTC’s lithium hydroxide production will be sold to cathode refiners via long-term agreements that include commodity price corrections, but the company also will reserve a portion to be sold on the spot market, Melsert said.

Regarding the company’s bet on lithium hydroxide and the implications of that on demand for lithium iron phosphate (LFP) versus nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) batteries, Melsert said: “I don’t see either one completely winning out. There are different types of consumers that want different types of products.”

Fastmarkets’ latest weekly price assessment for lithium carbonate, 99.5% Li2CO3 min, battery grade, spot price, ddp US and Canada, was steady at $13.80-15.00 per kg on June 27. The corresponding assessment for lithium hydroxide monohydrate, LiOH.H2O, 56.5% LiOH min, battery grade, spot price, ddp US and Canada, fell by 2.78% to $13.50-14.50 per kg on the same day.

Spot lithium prices in China’s domestic market have been weak on sluggish downstream demand from the battery sector and bearish sentiment, although battery-grade lithium prices were steady on a CIF China, Japan and Korea (CJK) basis.

Fastmarkets has proposed launching weekly price assessments for black mass payable indicators, ex-works US, to provide insight into the US battery recycling sector.

(Editor’s note: This report was updated on Monday July 15 to clarify that the recycling plant at the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center in Nevada is slated to start production early next year, not the commercial-scale lithium refinery at Tonopah. This report also was updated on Friday July 19 to clarify that ABTC successfully manufactured demonstration-scale quantities of lithium hydroxide at its facility in McCarran, Nevada, not Tonopah.) 

Gain a competitive edge with our lithium prices. Talk to us about our market-reflective lithium prices, data and analysis.

The post ABTC expects nearshoring of lithium hydroxide production to help US cathode makers appeared first on Fastmarkets.

Bearish sentiment prevails in spot lithium market

Ongoing sluggish demand and oversupply in the lithium market has led to bearish sentiment toward the near-term outlook among delegates at the conference.

“Chile’s lithium carbonate and Australia’s spodumene are still being shipped to China in large volumes, and new lithium projects are coming online. We are having a big oversupply issue,” a trader said.

“I believe there’s still downside room for lithium prices,” the trader added.

Multiple delegates at the conference told Fastmarkets that they didn’t see any support for demand to pick up in the near term.

Some other delegates expected some restocking in the third quarter, or before China’s National Day holiday (October 1-7), which could result in a rebound in lithium prices.

“Even if there’s rebound due to restocking demand, it will be short-lived, as in general the demand is still weak,” a Chinese lithium producer source said.

Rising African spodumene supply adds pressure to lithium market

Africa will become more and more important in terms of lithium supply, further adding pressure to an oversupply market, Fastmarkets learned at the conference.

Some major Chinese lithium producers have established vertically integrated lithium mine projects in Zimbabwe, including Huayou Cobalt, Chengxin Lithium and Yahua Lithium, as well as Sinomine. Some sources expect more supply to be released from these projects later this year.

In recent months, Fastmarkets heard that direct shipping ores of spodumene had already been shipped to China in large volumes from Africa.

“With the rising lithium hard rock supply from Africa, Australian spodumene will be under greater downward pressure amid existing oversupply and weak demand,” a trader said.

“We have already been sourcing spodumene from Africa from this year, as the prices are more competitive than Australian spodumene,” a second Chinese lithium producer source said.

Major producers say auctions add price transparency, efficiency

Top executives from Albemarle Corporation and Pilbara Minerals believe recent auctions of spodumene and lithium products are adding pricing transparency and trading efficiencies into the market.

“The end goal is to really create greater visibility and transparency around all forms of pricing at all different product levels within the supply chain, and to do so in a way that you can trust,” Eric Norris, president of energy storage at Albemarle, said during the Leaders’ Keynote Debate on June 25. “I’m not saying the data that’s out there today is untrustworthy, I’m just saying it’s thin. The amount of information that goes into that doesn’t come robustly from the marketplace.”

Scrutiny of reported prices from price reporting agencies (PRAs) has grown in recent years while the global lithium market has experienced shifts in market size, structure and pricing mechanisms.

Fastmarkets harnesses a variety of data when assessing its lithium and spodumene price assessments, ensuring transparency into the “tradeable level” in the open and competitive spot market.

The US-based spodumene and lithium producer’s strategy for most of its business will remain focused on long-term contracts, according to Norris.

But the hope is that the auctions will help minimize price distortion by providing a satisfying reference point for both buyers and sellers, he said.

The auctions “potentially allow the industry to contemplate hedging to mitigate some of the pricing risks as well,” he added.

Dale Henderson, chief executive officer of Australian spodumene producer Pilbara, believes the auctions are enabling better trading efficiency, with more market maturity still to come.

“What we need to move to is more efficient trading methods, as seen in other markets,” he said.

“The auctions that have been occurring over the last couple of years – in particular this last year – are enabling that better efficiency, but ultimately there is much more to go for the industry.”

Henderson outlined three key steps for the market’s evolution:

• Unifying product specifications and trading terms,
• Supporting sufficient volumes from both buyers and sellers,
• And coming together as an industry at a common marketplace.

Auctions are not uncommon in other commodity markets and can provide transparency to market prices, when full transparency regarding details and terms is provided.

These auctions, when normalized where appropriate, can be used by Fastmarkets in the price discovery process for lithium and spodumene.

Fastmarkets’ latest weekly price assessment for lithium carbonate 99.5% Li2CO3 min, battery grade, spot price ddp US and Canada was steady at $13.80-15.00 per kg on July 3. The corresponding assessment for lithium hydroxide monohydrate LiOH.H2O, 56.5% LiOH min, battery grade, spot price ddp US and Canada was also unchanged, at $13.50-14.50 per kg on the same day.

Pricing mechanisms remain focal point for market

With auctions becoming more commonplace, and new sources of supply coming into the market, attention on pricing mechanisms continues to grow.

The lithium market has seen a number of fundamental changes in this regard, shifting from a system of largely fixed-price long-term contracts to the adoption of PRA-published price assessments forming the basis of contracts.

Other shifts have also taken place, including the move toward forward-facing quotation periods in contracts.

Participants across the value chain noted that there was still room for further development in pricing mechanisms in the lithium market. However, one key trend that is rapidly emerging is the use of payables in spodumene pricing.

This is where, particularly in longer-term contracts, the value of spodumene is derived from a percentage of the price of lithium carbonate or hydroxide, depending on the contract.

This ensures greater connection between the two products, since spodumene is used as a feedstock in the production of lithium hydroxide and carbonate.

“This is exactly what we’ve been waiting to see in lithium,” one financial market participant told Fastmarkets. “It’s a sign of a market maturing.”

The reason for this shift, beyond the increased pricing relationship, is that it also enables more effective hedging across the lithium value chain, with participants able to utilize mechanisms such as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s cash settled futures contracts for hydroxide and carbonate.

Battery recyclers adapt to survive

After a challenging 12 months, battery recycling market participants arrived in Las Vegas less bullish than last year, with the focus being on survival in the current market environment.

Financial issues have delayed progress of some major Western entrants into the sector, while weaker battery metal prices and stronger black mass payables amid stiff competition in Asia have hampered conversion margins for black mass consumers.

One way to maximize value from recycling is selling streams of copper at high prices to offset low lithium and cobalt prices, Ryan Melsert, CEO of American Battery Technology Company (ABTC), said.

Recycling companies must “stay close” to customers such as OEMs and iron out technological issues to thrive, according to Tim Johnston, co-founder of Li-Cycle and partner at Blue Horizon Advisors.

Meanwhile, a conference delegate speaking on the sidelines was more philosophical about the need for partnerships at this time: “At winter, a lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.”

Cobalt finds support with lithium attendees from need to recycle

Cobalt found some favor at the conference from a recycling standpoint, with delegates viewing nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) batteries as a “ready-made” product for reuse after recycling while noting hurdles to overcome for lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) batteries.

“For LFP, there is little appetite for recycling the iron phosphate – it’s basically waste – but NMC output can go straight back into new batteries and other sectors also,” Austin Devaney, senior commercial advisor for Piedmont Lithium, said.

Presenters also felt that the current low-price environment for many critical metals is having an impact on new operations that are trying to enter supply chains.

“At current lithium prices, new lithium projects do not make sense and prices are concerning at these levels; many in the West will operate at a loss” Norris said.

Cobalt standard-grade metal prices are at 8-year lows currently, due to a persistent oversupply that is overhanging the market. Battery-grade lithium hydroxide prices on a CIF China, Japan and South Korea (CJK) basis are at their lowest level since April 2021.

Ready to deepen your understanding? Find out more about Fastmarkets’ battery raw materials insights and prices today and stay informed about all the critical developments in the battery raw materials market.

The post What we learned at the Lithium Supply and Battery Raw Materials conference 2024 appeared first on Fastmarkets.

European and North American lithium prices softened.

China

Spot lithium prices in China continued to drop amid sustained weakness in consumer appetite, and the outlook for demand in July also remained pessimistic.

The most active July lithium carbonate contract closed at 94,400 yuan ($12,998) per tonne on Thursday, down by 3,400 yuan per tonne from the close of 97,800 yuan per tonne a week earlier.

“Futures prices are still falling. Previously, the market expected the price bottom of battery-grade lithium carbonate at 95,000 yuan per tonne. But given the poor demand and little hope for near-term demand improvement, both spot and futures prices are already below that level,” a Chinese lithium producer source said.

Market participants expected the weak demand for lithium to persist into July.

Some sources said lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cathode production could further fall in July from June, while the nickel cobalt manganese (NCM) sector is even less hopeful in terms of any near-term improvement.

“The lithium hydroxide market is under great pressure. The demand is dead. Cathode makers are selling their hydroxide inventories,” a Chinese lithium trader said.

While some sources expected cathode makers to restock lithium in August or September following destocking in the prior months, others said it remained unclear how demand would develop in the third quarter.

US-based Albemarle held an online auction for 100 tonnes of battery-grade lithium carbonate on Wednesday, with the result concluded at 93,605 yuan per tonne, according to sources.

This result was 6,900 yuan per tonne lower than the previous result at 100,505 yuan per tonne for 100 tonnes of battery-grade lithium carbonate on June 5.

Fastmarkets’ weekly assessment of lithium carbonate 99.5% Li2CO3 min, battery grade, spot price range exw domestic China was 92,000-94,000 yuan per tonne on Thursday, down by 3,000-4,000 yuan per tonne from 95,000-98,000 yuan per tonne a week earlier.

And Fastmarkets’ weekly assessment of lithium hydroxide monohydrate LiOH.H2O 56.5% LiOH min, battery grade, spot price range exw domestic China was 83,000-90,000 yuan per tonne on Thursday, down by 3,000-4,000 yuan per tonne from 87,000-93,000 yuan per tonne a week earlier.

CIF CJK

Spot lithium prices in the CIF CJK market held steady over the past week amid ongoing thin demand, while market participants closely monitored the decline in China’s domestic market.

“There’s much less inquiries for spot lithium recently,” an international lithium producer source said.

Another international lithium producer source echoed the same view, adding that the sentiment in the CIF CJK market was also bearish amid the ongoing weakness in China’s domestic market.

An East Asian consumer source expected the lithium price weakness in China to flow through into the CIF CJK market sooner or later.

Fastmarkets’ daily price assessment of lithium hydroxide monohydrate LiOH.H2O 56.5% LiOH min, battery grade, spot price cif China, Japan & Korea was $13.00-14.00 per kg on Thursday, unchanged since June 11.

Fastmarkets’ daily price assessment of lithium carbonate 99.5% Li2CO3 min, battery grade, spot prices cif China, Japan & Korea was $13.00-14.00 per kg on Thursday, unchanged since June 11.

However, multiple market participants noted that the consumers of technical-grade lithium carbonate are less sensitive to the prices and that the spread between battery-grade and technical-grade lithium carbonate are very narrow.

Fastmarkets’ weekly assessment of lithium carbonate 99% Li2CO3 min, technical and industrial grades, spot price cif China, Japan & Korea was $12.50-13.90 per kg on Thursday, up by $0.40-0.50 per kg from $12.00-13.50 per kg a week earlier.

Europe and North America

European and North American battery-grade lithium prices slipped this week due to sluggish spot market activity, sources reported.

“The market is calm at the moment,” a seller said.

Bearish sentiment trailed weakness from Asia. This offset slightly higher freight costs from Asia to Europe, according to a second seller.

Meanwhile, technical-grade lithium prices were unchanged across the board in Europe and North America.

Fastmarkets’ latest price assessments for lithium carbonate 99.5% Li2CO3 min, battery grade, spot price ddp Europe and lithium hydroxide monohydrate LiOH.H2O 56.5% LiOH min, battery grade, spot price ddp Europe were both $13.50-14.50 per kg on Thursday, down from a week prior.

And Fastmarkets’ price assessments for lithium carbonate 99.5% Li2CO3 min, battery grade, spot price ddp US and Canada and lithium hydroxide monohydrate LiOH.H2O, 56.5% LiOH min, battery grade, spot price ddp US and Canada both dropped week on week to $13.80-15.00 per kg.

Gain a competitive edge with our lithium prices. Talk to us about our market-reflective lithium prices, data and analysis.

The post Chinese lithium price weakness persists with CIF CJK stable appeared first on Fastmarkets.

The affected assessments were:
MB-NI-0241 Nickel briquette premium, delivered Midwest US, US cents/lb
MB-NI-0240 Nickel 4×4 cathode premium, delivered Midwest US, US cents/lb

These prices are a part of the Fastmarkets nonferrous package.

For more information or to provide feedback on the delayed publication of this price or if you would like to provide price information by becoming a data submitter to these prices, please contact Grace Asenov by email at: pricing@fastmarkets.com. Please add the subject heading “FAO: Grace Asenov, re: nickel.”

Please indicate if comments are confidential. Fastmarkets will consider all comments received and will make comments not marked as confidential available upon request.

To see all Fastmarkets pricing methodology and specification documents, go to https://www.fastmarkets.com/methodology.

The post Delayed publication of US nickel premiums appeared first on Fastmarkets.

China

The spot lithium market remained illiquid over the recent week, with sources noting that downstream consumers were still inactive with replenishing their inventories.

“Most Chinese cathode makers haven’t been restocking lithium salts. They have increasingly relied on the supply delivered directly by their downstream customers, the battery makers. So the spot lithium market has been quiet over the past week,” a Chinese battery metals trader said.

Many other sources echoed the same view.

Some sources attributed the current slow demand for spot lithium salts to the accumulated inventories in the downstream cathode and battery sector.

“The output of cathodes and batteries in the recent months was large. But now that the overall market demand from the electric vehicle (EV) sector has slowed and we are entering the typical slack season, the spot lithium market has become very inactive,” a Chinese second lithium producer source said.

Multiple market participants expressed bearish sentiment, indicating little hope for any demand improvement for lithium salts in the short term, which could add further downward pressure to the lithium prices.

Chinese lepidolite and lithium producer Yichun Mining held an online tender for 192 tonnes of battery-grade lithium carbonate on Tuesday May 28, while the result was concluded at 106,200 yuan per tonne, according to multiple sources.

“In terms of lithium hydroxide, I think the domestic demand for the material is better than what it seems to be now. But the issue is the price. If the price is low enough, we may see better liquidity of hydroxide,” a second Chinese lithium producer source said.

Fastmarkets’ weekly assessment of lithium carbonate 99.5% Li2CO3 min, battery grade, spot price range exw domestic China was 104,000-106,200 yuan ($14,367-14,671) per tonne on Thursday, down by 700-1,000 yuan per tonne from 105,000-106,900 yuan per tonne a week earlier.

Fastmarkets’ weekly assessment of lithium hydroxide monohydrate LiOH.H2O 56.5% LiOH min, battery grade, spot price range exw domestic China was 94,000-103,000 yuan per tonne, down by 1,000-2,000 yuan per tonne from 95,000-105,000 yuan per tonne a week earlier.

CIF CJK

The spot lithium prices in the CIF CJK market remained unchanged over the recent week, with market participants noting limited changes to market fundamentals.

“The spot market has been quiet and stable recently, and the prices haven’t fluctuated much,” an East Asian consumer source said.

Multiple other sources said that although Chinese lithium prices were under downward pressure, the decline was only mild. Consequently, the weakness in China’s domestic market did not filter through to the CJK market over the recent week.

On the other hand, market participants showed mixed views on the demand for lithium hydroxide.

“The enquiries for battery-grade lithium hydroxide were active. While some of those enquiries were due to the consumers’ genuine demand, many other consumers just enquired to test the market prices,” a Chinese third lithium producer source said.

A second East Asian consumer source said they were not restocking lithium at the moment and trying to minimize inventories since they were soon about to release their half-year financial performance reports.

But an East Asian trader noted that the demand for hydroxide and carbonate was still well supported, since some consumers were running low on the inventories they built up in the beginning of the year.

Fastmarkets’ daily price assessment of lithium hydroxide monohydrate LiOH.H2O 56.5% LiOH min, battery grade, spot price cif China, Japan & Korea was $13.40-14.50 per kg on Thursday, unchanged since May 22.

Fastmarkets’ daily price assessment of lithium carbonate 99.5% Li2CO3 min, battery grade, spot prices cif China, Japan & Korea was $13.50-14.50 per kg on Thursday, unchanged since May 22.

Europe and US lithium

Europe lithium prices dropped in the week to Thursday, following weaker sentiment in Asia, but were mixed in North America.

Spot market activity in both the European and North American regions remained quiet over the recent week.

Prices dropped in Europe on the expectation that demand will remain weak in China in June. An intermediary reported potential lower prices in the hydroxide market, though transactions had not yet been confirmed.

In North America, prices for lithium carbonate market were flat, but those for hydroxide dropped slightly.

A seller active in Europe and the North American markets said those regions overall continue to maintain a premium over seaborne Asia markets.

Fastmarkets’ latest price assessment for lithium carbonate 99.5% Li2CO3 min, battery grade, spot price ddp Europe was $14.00-15.20 per kg on Thursday, down from $14.00-15.50 per kg a week prior.

Fastmarkets’ price assessment for lithium carbonate 99.5% Li2CO3 min, battery grade, spot price ddp US and Canada was $14.00-15.50 per kg, unchanged week on week

Fastmarkets’ latest price assessment for lithium hydroxide monohydrate LiOH.H2O 56.5% LiOH min, battery grade, spot price ddp Europe was $14.00-15.20 per kg on Thursday, down from $14.30-15.50 per kg in the preceding week.

Fastmarkets’ price assessment for lithium hydroxide monohydrate LiOH.H2O 56.5% LiOH min, battery grade, spot price ddp US and Canada was $14.00-15.50 per kg, down from $14.50-15.75 per kg the week prior.

Get transparency into the market movements with our battery raw materials price forecasts and market outlooks. Download a sample of our lithium long-term forecast now.

The post China lithium spot prices inch down appeared first on Fastmarkets.

Westwater is building its Kellyton battery-grade graphite processing plant in east-central Alabama, and it owns the Coosa and Bama Mine graphite projects, also both in Alabama.

“It might seem strange that we decided to build the processing plant before the mine, but we really did that to ensure that we could get revenue and cash flow sooner,” Cryan said.

The Centennial, Colorado-based company has an offtake agreement with South Korean EV battery manufacturer SK On for the supply of coated spherical purified graphite (CSPG) to SK On’s US plants.

“There’s approximately 17 battery Giga plants under development in the US, and all of those are designed to use graphite as the anode material, and yet here in the United States, we don’t produce any of it,” Cryan said. “We’re trying to stand up a North American battery-grade graphite business in an industry that is completely dominated by China today.”

Westwater’s practices are “fundamentally different” from the way the industry operates in China, mainly due to its environmental benefits, according to Cryan. Chinese companies use hydrofluoric acid to produce CSPG, and Westwater does not, he said.

“When you’re having conversations with battery manufacturers and OEMs, they are very interested in your environmental footprint until you get to the point where you’re trying to negotiate offtake pricing with the supply chain, and then the conversation shifts – then the conversation is really about price – because they’ve been the beneficiaries over the last 20 years of inexpensive Chinese anode material,” Cryan said.

“Battery manufacturers and OEMs are sincere about wanting to have a supply chain that is environmentally responsible,” he clarified to Fastmarkets after the panel. “We see clear evidence of that in their behavior; they want to know before they do business with us about the particulars of our environmental footprint.”

Today, all anode material for lithium-ion batteries comes from China, with graphite as the anode material representing about 50% of a lithium-ion battery by weight, he said.

“We didn’t get into this business to compete with the Chinese on price,” Cryan said. “We got into this business to create a domestic industry in a critical material that has the most significance to be in supply-demand imbalance than any of the critical materials.”

Westwater applauded the US government for recently increasing US tariffs on Chinese EVs from 25% to 100%, and implementing a 25% tariff on natural graphite imports from China beginning in 2026. 

“These tariffs are just what the new and critically important US-based natural graphite industry needed to compete with the monopoly that exists in China today and only strengthen Westwater’s value proposition as we move to secure additional customers,” chief commerical officer Jon Jacobs said in a statement on May 15.

The tariffs are unlikely to have much of an impact on Chinese EV manufacturers, sources in China told Fastmarkets. 

Separately, the US Treasury Department earlier this month gave automakers a two-year extension, to 2027, on restrictions to some hard-to-trace minerals from China, such as graphite contained in anodes. 

Fastmarkets’ assessment for graphite flake 94% C, -100 mesh, cif Europe stood at $600-700 per tonne on Wednesday, unchanged since mid-April. Fastmarkets’ assessment for graphite flake 94% C, -100 mesh, fob China was $460-481 per tonne on Thursday May 23, down from $460-491 per tonne a month ago and $530-575 per tonne at the beginning of the year.

The spread between Chinese and European graphite prices hit a five-year high in the past couple of months amid developing market dynamics caused by rising freight rates, falling Chinese prices and geopolitical factors, sources told Fastmarkets.

Keep up with the latest news, market intelligence and trends in the graphite market when you visit our dedicated graphite market page. Get an in-depth, 10-year view into where and when graphite supply will come online with our graphite long-term forecast.

The post Graphite buyers are willing to pay IRA premium appeared first on Fastmarkets.