https://www.spglobal.com/marketinte...dow-to-send-unprocessed-ore-to-china-74357332
Lithium hopefuls seize 'finite' window to send unprocessed ore to ChinaAnthony Barich
China is set to receive a wave of unprocessed, low-grade lithium ore in what appears to be a limited window of opportunity ahead of project expansions going online.
Lithium prices have fallen from 2022's record levels, but they are still incentivizing smaller-scale, low-grade direct shipping ore, or DSO, that is cheap to mine. Developers planning larger-scale spodumene operations and downstream plants are also getting the chance to test their product through customers' supply chains.
In a market where many hard rock and brine projects are delayed and face cost pressures, China is well placed to process low-grade ore with high waste levels, according to Jarden Securities' equity research director, Jon Bishop.
"There is an increasing ability to source unrefined products and ship it back to China," Bishop told S&P Global Commodity Insights.
"To get an operation up from rocks in the ground to crushing, screening and putting on a boat is what we do well in Western Australia. So there are any number of projects which, within reason and a bit of drilling delineation over the next six months, could be front and center of doing that."
Lithium refiners have built too much capacity in China to meet the expected demand from battery manufacturers, and they lack spodumene concentrate from mines to fill those facilities, Widgie Nickel Ltd. Managing Director Steve Norregaard said in an interview.
"We're seeing many of these lithium refiners traveling the world talking to whoever has anything remotely close to lithium in the ground, saying 'we want your lithium because we want to fill our processing plants, and we can't do that relying on concentrate producers, because they are not producing enough,'" Norregaard said.
Widgie Nickel said Feb. 14 that it is fast-tracking the Faraday discovery at its Mt. Edwards project in Western Australia,
targeting production this year.
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