Given lithium hydroxide monohdrate demand in the lithium...

Given lithium hydroxide monohdrate demand in the lithium chemical market and tole in that market for hard rock going forward, and noting hydroxide will capture a greater marketshare in EVs than lithium carbonate, on a go forward basis for the next 10 years pricing contracts for good quality 6% grade spodumene sales need to follow hydroxide than carbonate pricing IMO.

Without going over to much old ground,for hard rock you can go from ore to hydroxide in a single process, whilst for brines you need to produce carbonate then hydroxide. This is where hard rock competes well with brines, so pricing for hard rock needs to follow the hydroxide price IMO.

Solid State batteries, IMO, whilst requiring a lithium carbonate input will most likely need a very high grade product input, so matching spodumene supply to the appropriate index a key going forward, rather than what I suspect is happening at the moment with spodumene prices generally been tied to LCE pricing, but given the opaque nature of the market, more likely st this stage been tied to a 'poorer' pricibg index not reflecting quality.

That is lithium carbonate pricing that I have seen have varying prices based on what is been targetted - i.e. battery orindustrial grade, meaning prices remain opaque. As EVs takeoff further, I suspect more visble and more appropriate reference prices will be there in the market to aid pricing, and thus move away from the opaque nature of the market, and any Chinese manipulation of the market itself. What will help is further takeup and production of lithium chemicals in Europe and production of EVs in Europe as well.

As a final point, from revollection a number of Australian producers including AJM have prices linked to movements in the 'lithium carbonate price', noting which index has generally been a concern. Moving contracts to movements in lithium hydroxide prices, provided qualityspecs are met in the spodumene concentrate sold, I personally feel may be better going forward.

All IMO