For others I posted on lepidolite and its issues in another thread as well as what I though of the GS report -
Post #:71667622@8horse, I found your analogy of iron ore interesting. What people don't know is that China has large internal iron ore resources (note I am not using the word reserves) (as well as coal resources btw). Yet it imports a crap load of iron ore from Western Australia and Brazil (and also coal from Australia).
Why, it internal iron ore is not that great and it needs access to decent quality ore as a means to produce good quality steel and other iron ore related products, and to underpin its construction sector. China tried to manipulate iron ore prices quite some time ago through using its own internal resources, but ultimately all that did was produce inferior product and escalate the costs of production there. China has also played around with blending the imports with its own resources too in producing end products. We know what has happened to iron ore prices since those lows all those years ago. Simply put, China cannot sustain using its internal iron ore resources given costs of processing involved and issues with the end product as a means to influence iron ore prices long term.
My point of yabbering the above, is you are seeing the same thing in lithium now. China is using (or threatening to use) its internal
crap lepidolite (see embedded post above) and brine resources to try and control lithium prices. I see that strategy going pear shaped just like what you saw in iron ore in the longer term. Ultimately quality matters - and that quality, when your internal resources are not that great, can only come from imports. It is also why China is trying to get its grubby hands on IMO IMO IMO good quality lithium resources located offshore China (specifically those in Africa given FIRB won't allow takeover IMO of Australian resources).
Western economies are starting to wake up that there is too much risk if you allow China to dominate markets. Western governments seem too me to finally getting an understanding of what this graph means and why they are starting to seek locating downstream activities away from China - they can also see the strategy China invokes given what it has sought to do of late in rare earth markets - China bans exports of some rare-earth processing technology | Business | nny360.com and China's rare earths dominance in focus after it limits germanium and gallium exports | Reuters.
One of the key things for lithium price stability is reducing China's dominance in the market.
All IMO IMO
(20min delay)