PLS chart, page-18699

It's interesting reading the commentary from FastMarkets

China’s lithium prices soften further, dragging down other markets - Fastmarkets

“We haven’t purchased spot lithium carbonate over the past week because our supply is well covered by our long-term agreements. In general, cathode producers dare not stock up while the lithium price downtrend is expected to persist,” a Chinese cathode producer source said.

Multiple sources told Fastmarkets that some of China’s cathode producers were operating on low lithium inventories – just about 2-3 days’ worth of production.

“Cathode producers’ lithium inventories are low and whenever they run out of lithium they just stock up in the spot market, but only in small quantities of several tens of tonnes. This way they can benefit from a rapidly falling market,” a Chinese lithium producer source said.

A second Chinese producer source said: “Amid such weak demand, lithium producers who have locked much of their output under long-term agreements are not that pressured to lower spot prices. But lithium producers who only have a small proportion of their output tied to long-term agreements are under much more pressure and they are more aggressive with the lowering of spot offers.”