Li-related News/Articles/Reports, page-6409

The narrative some push about contract pricing simply being the spot price + Xmontbs is nonsense.
“Average” contract price figures inherently hide the variations in contract pricing terms and product specifics.
Afaict there are indeed contracts that reference various spot pricing but also do this in the form of monthly or quarterly averaging, along with other factors and limits. This can indeed result in contracts that generally follow the trend of a spot price but without the peaks and troughs, and also means there is very significant variation between the various contracts and resultant pricing.
“BG Lithium carbonate” is not a simple/consistent/specific commodity as suggested by a lot of the generalised commentary out there wrt products and pricing. AFAIK most customers cannot simply shop around and replace/shuffle their supply with whoever has the best price this week/month.
The variation seems very significant and unfortunately it is difficult to find clear info on this, afaict. Understandably companies like to keep the contract and price details quiet/broad for commercial reasons.
So techincally, as some commentators have said, there is no “lithium price”; and one needs to consider what a claimed “price” specifically refers to. Detail matters!

DYOR