Fastmarkets might not cover 100% of the market, but the proof is in the pudding with what companies are reporting. The benchmark is MIN. They were getting US$930 in the last quarter of CY2018. That's more than what GXY received at its peak. In the first quarter of CY2019 MIN received US$792 and in the second quarter of CY2019 MIN received US$682. So far that's a drop of 27% in the space of 2 quarters. If a 27% drop in the space of a few months isn't tanking, I'd like to know what is
PLS has recently reported pricing of US$600-640. I think it's easy to predict what GXY will be getting for its spod in the last half of CY2019 with very high accuracy, IMO.
It seems to be unanimous in the industry that there is more softness to come in pricing. Every company that has reported recently says so, industry experts are saying it, and so on. The general consensus is for pricing to continue to soften until late 2020 or into 2021 and for lithium pricing (carbonate and/or hydroxide) to stabilise around US$10k/t. I'm not making this stuff up or trying to spread fear. I'm presenting facts. Pretty much everyone at the Lithium Supply & Markets 2019 Conference was saying the same thing.
