Pilbara official website on March 18 news, after more than a year, Australian miner Pilbara (Pilbara) restarted the lithium concentrate auction. This is the first lithium concentrate auction this year and the 14th in history, which was conducted on the Battery Material Exchange (BMX) electronic trading platform.
The ore volume of this auction is 5,000 tons, and the concentrate grade is 5.5%. According to the announcement, the company received pre-bid offers from multiple buyers before the auction of spodumene concentrate began, and finally accepted an offer of $1,106 / ton (about 7,961 yuan/ton), which was more than 80% lower than the last auction transaction price of $7,505 / ton (about 54,000 yuan/ton) in December 2022. It is worth noting that the latest quotation has changed from the previous FOB to CIF. After adjusting the lithium content and freight in proportion, the lithium concentrate auction price is about $1,200 / ton (about 8635 yuan/ton) at SC6.0 CIF China price, and is expected to be delivered around December this year. Corresponding to the cost of lithium carbonate is expected to be in January 2025, according to the previous forecast of a number of institutions, January belongs to the lithium salt trading off-season, and the lithium price is expected to be about 80,000 yuan/ton. Therefore, although the auction price of the Pilbara is lower than the expectations of some lithium salt companies and institutions, from the perspective of lithium price trend, it is still relatively high.
