Ann: June 2024 Quarterly Activities Report, page-160

Thats the million dollar question

On the one hand Chinese manufacturers want gauranteed supply, from a stable jurisdiction, product quality aspects need to be met, consideration of envirnomental standards need to be met etc etc

On the other hand, you have money being poured into unstable jurisdictions, with product labelling incorrect, no care in the world for environmental aspects, or ethics, or child labour. This is driving the prices down in low volumes on the exchanges

Yet, PLS has to supply based on pre-set formulas linked to the indexes. Doesnt make sense to me. This happened in the iron ore trade back in 2005. You cannot compare iron ore with Lithium due to extensive availablity.

However this price fall looks unsustainable. SYA released their Quarterly and their cash costs were huge, I am sure they are not the last mine to report huge cash costs, perhaps resulting in some of these mines going into care and maintenance at current prevailing prices

GS, MS, UBS, Citi were all selling a story in their broker notes today. I am surprised that some of them acknowledged that production came in better then expected, so did the cash costs, however some of them claimed the price they received was lower then expected. Even after acknowledging the potential for higher production, and understanding the re-negotiation in pricing with some of their suppliers, they still lowered their targets - No surprise that this stock is 21% short, ie the research notes were simply backing their position

UBS is on a visit to Africa, I doner if they will raise environmental concerns, corruption, jurisdiction in their notes. Does it matter? - hell yes it does!!!