https://www.copyright link/business/mining/lithium-prices-continue-to-slide-20181115-h17xpw
Saw this article in the AFR this morning.
Basically says hard rock prices have declined from about 1070 USD per Tonne to about 900 currently and could get as low as 700.
This is for spodumene containing about 6% lithium (Hard Rock).
In comparison ORE is selling 99%+ lithium carbonate which is already refined and be used by the customer.
Average prices for ORE lithium carb are USD 13,635 per Tonne
If we look at those numbers for hard rock lithium assuming it is also 99%+ pure. we would need 16.66 tonnes of spodumene to get 1 tonne of lithium assuming also no losses.
At:
1,070 x 16.66 = USD 17,826 per tonne
900 x 16.66 = USD 14,994 per tonne
700 x 16.66 = USD 11,662 per tonne
Note this is not an end product and the lithium still needs to be extracted and refined unlike ORE's product.
Have i missed something here or are the hard rock prices over inflated anyway and coming back to where they should be?
