The price of spodumene made its first move since December in the latest assessment on Wednesday April 24, narrowing downward by $50 per tonne. This means that spodumene prices have fallen by 30.48% between May 2018 and April 2019, due to the decline in lithium prices in China.
Fastmarkets' monthly assessment on April 24 this year showed the contract price of spodumene (min 5-6% Li2O) at $600-700 per tonne cif China [LINK]. This was down from $900-970 per tonne on May 30, 2018.Spodumene prices have gone down due to the falling prices for lithium carbonate and hydroxide in China. These products are typically used by converters in China and by spodumene producers in Australia to calculate lithium spodumene contract prices.An important amount of lithium carbonate and hydroxide produced in China from spodumene is sold in the Chinese domestic market. So the price formula between converters and producers depends on the domestic spot prices for these two lithium compounds.The spot price of battery-grade lithium carbonate...