The irony is that the more that producers miss production guidance, the sooner the bull sentiment will come back to lithium. If the group as a cohort keep coming up short on production, and demand stays the same, oversupply gets chewed up quicker and brings forward the return to deficits. A big swing factor will be if the new Pilbara hard rock mines struggle to meet nameplate volumes with any consistency after commercial production is declared (and history suggests it'll be tough to do as Mt Marion and MT Catllin never lived up to original spec), then it in turn supports a more bullish stance on investing in the sector as supply is getting shorter relative to demand and that means lithium prices would start to rise.
ORE Price at posting:
$3.80 Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held