GT1 - Megathread, page-1453

With respect, its BS to say the spot price USD560.

The spot price is mid-US800's although I have seen one reference to US$770. SMM and Fastmarkets are copied below supporting this as the 13th August price. Those prices also make sense back to Hydroxide (unless you use stuffed up calculations). Taking the LTR scoping study back in Nov 2011, the conversion ratio for SC6.0 to hydroxide used was 6.6x (and Piedmont used a very similar number in their hydroxide plans).

US$560 * 6.6 + $3300 = US$6,996. That then converts at 7.17 to CNY of 50,161. The hydroxide price is in the 75-80k range. If someone was an efficient converter with the cost structure LTR proposed, they would have near 50% margins if they could buy SC6 at US$560/t. There are transport costs to be factored in and pricing often lacks clarity re taxes but the maths doesn't work for that to be the conversion.

If we try that same maths at US$825 it becomes US$8,745 for hydroxide. Allowing a guess of a 20% converter margin beyond cost and its US$10,494 which then is CNY75,242 which is balanced back to what's observed in the market and with a converter margin of 20% included, the conversion makes money.