Converters was the wrong word to use there, brain fart.
The disconnect has been that digging up rocks is a faster process to setup than the downstream processes. There's oversupply in some of the stages of the process and then an under-supply at the output. Hence the news of xyz automaker delaying deliveries due to battery shortages whilst we sit here and talk oversupply. That implies that somewhere in that chain there is a bottleneck. LCE prices are down but still profitable as long as you're not terrible at conversion. Spod prices are down with a similar story. Tianqi being down this quarter and blaming it on lack of production at Greenbushes despite the fact that they could have purchased alternative product from a host of others implies that they don't want to be running all that capacity.
All of which indicates that if prices are to rise again then production for LCE and making it into batteries needs to increase its just that many of those projects are slow.
GXY Price at posting:
85.3¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
