General Discussion AGY, page-5879

• After some stabilization in the past two weeks, seaborne lithium prices moved up further as sellers kept pushing with high offers.
  
  Platts assessed lithium carbonate at $74,000/mt March 29, up $1,000/mt from March 28 and $2,000/mt from March 22, while lithium hydroxide surged to $78,000 mt, up $4,000 from March 28 and $4,500/mt from March 22, according to data from S&P Global Commodity Insights.
  The prices reflected the spot value of battery-grade material on a CIF North Asia basis, referring to deliveries to the main ports of China, Japan and South Korea. Lithium carbonate, however, is normalized to deliveries at Shanghai.
  Despite the price hikes, market participants noticed some softening in market sentiment. Several sources said Chinese domestic prices should stabilize and could even drop slightly from the current levels, which could reduce momentum for seaborne prices as well.
  “It makes sense that prices could reach a limit, the margins across the supply chain are very tight — that limit could be near,” a seller said.
  However, there was still some room for prices to go up outside of China in order to match the Chinese levels, which could have been the cause of the recent increase, sources said. Moreover, market fundamentals were still considered supportive, given than supply was considered insufficient, particularly for hydroxide, which has been more requested than carbonate recently in the spot market.
  “There is low stock, we can not satisfy all inquiries,” a hydroxide seller said, adding they had achieved some transactions as high as $78,000-$80,000/mt CIF basis. The seller added that his technical-grade hydroxide offers were at the same level.
  A second seller source did not hear about any concluded transactions for hydroxide at $80,000/mt, but concurred that the tradable value should be in the $78,000-$80,000/mt range.
  “Some customers in Korea have monthly shortage of 500-600 mt, so prices hitting $80,000/mt should be expected,” the second seller added.
  A trader source had the impression that carbonate was still trading at a premium to hydroxide in the seaborne market, but was unable to determine market values. He calculated that, based on the current Chinese domestic prices, about $70,000/mt CIF should be a baseline for both carbonate and hydroxide.
  The Platts $74,000/mt assessment for battery-grade lithium carbonate CIF North Asia was equivalent to Yuan 532,368/mt on a DDP China basis, including 13% value-added tax, based on S&P Global’s import-parity calculation.
  The DDP China lithium carbonate price was assessed at Yuan 500,000/mt March 29, meaning seaborne prices were well above Chinese domestic prices. The dollar was assessed at Yuan 6.364 at 4:30 pm Singapore time.