If you are going to claim "dopes and misinformation everywhere",...

If you are going to claim "dopes and misinformation everywhere", you should probably start by ensuring that you are accurate yourself. A few points that stand out to me:

1. There is no evidence to support your statement that 80% of lepidolite/DSO has shut down. You just made that up.

2. Your claim that only brine is profitable at US$11k per tonne is nonsense:

PLS are producing at US$523 per tonne (CIF).
US$523 x 7.5 (spod conversion factor to carbonate) = US$3922.5
Conversion cost for spodumene to carbonate is ~US$5000 (see reference below from Fastmarkets)
US$3922.5 + US$5000 = US$8922.50




Therefore PLS could potentially still turn a profit at US$9k, let alone $11k. The economics for Talison/Greenbushes are even better.

3. As far as the China EV sales slowdown goes, you're using CNY as an excuse. What happened in January before CNY, where BYD sales almost halved month-on-month? We'll have to wait to see the March figures to confirm, but IMO we are likely seeing the start of the economic effect of the Chinese property slump flowing through to the car sector. We need to see BYD sales at least flatten in March, otherwise their sales growth is running below 20% year-on-year.