I've spoken to multiple parties who've recently visited China...

I've spoken to multiple parties who've recently visited China from a few of the local lithium companies (ie in the last few weeks) and consistently the message has been that the stockpiles in China for spodumene are very low and restocking will need to take place into the new year. Interestingly the same people are saying that the hydroxide stockpiles are quite high. What this tells me is that we have an immature supply chain that is still not large enough to handle the effect of month-month EV sales/BESS's and so we will see big tidal movements until the market becomes large enough, transparent enough and liquid enough to enable averaging out of the movements in a way that doesn't have such rapid moves on the price. EV sales growth will go up and down month on month but the key is there is still growth. Say what you want about affordability etc, but in some countries there are legislated timeframes to stop ICE production. Whether the targets get moved out or not, currently Norway is phasing out ICEs by 2025, Britain, Israel and Singapore by 2030. China is on track for 20% EV penetration by 2025 and the US has a 50% target for 2030. The EU has recently passed a bill banning ICE sales of new cars post 2035.

The short term noise around supply is simply that. Short-term and noise. Why do you think these billionaires are jumping over themselves to sure up supply. OEMs and battery manufacturers are going hard to lock up offtake in addition to the fact the the rest of the world (ex-China) are rapidly trying to catch up on a 30 year supply chain head start for the Chinese who have cleverly built an industry while everyone else talked about it.