Recently, the lithium carbonate market has continued to operate weakly, and the price center has further shifted downwards. According to data from Shanghai Nonferrous Metals Network, as of May 12th, the spot price range for industrial grade lithium carbonate was 62500 to 64300 yuan/ton, with an average price of 63400 yuan/ton. The average price for battery grade lithium carbonate was 65000 yuan/ton, a decrease of 1300 yuan/ton from the previous trading day. Since April 14th, the average price of industrial grade lithium carbonate has fallen by 5.8%, and the average price of battery grade lithium carbonate has fallen by 5.5%. Although the downward slope of prices has slowed down, it has not yet stabilized.
There is a structural contradiction between supply and demand. The expected domestic production of lithium carbonate in May is 70600 tons, an increase of 2.5% compared to the previous month, mainly due to the concentrated resumption of production after the procurement of raw materials by non self owned mining enterprises in East China and the seasonal increase in production in Qinghai Salt Lake. However, the growth on the demand side is weak, with a predicted demand of 93200 tons in May, a month on month increase of 4.03%. The apparent supply-demand gap has narrowed to 22600 tons, but actual inventory pressure remains significant. As of May 9th, the total inventory of the entire industry chain was 131600 tons, including 54900 tons of smelting plant inventory, an increase of 7.48% month on month, and 42200 tons of downstream inventory, a decrease of 6.67% month on month. The inventory structure shows that upstream accumulation and downstream destocking are parallel.
The cost side support continues to weaken. The production cost of externally purchased spodumene concentrate is 68866 yuan/ton, a decrease of 1.64% compared to the previous period, corresponding to a production loss of 4513 yuan/ton; The production cost of lithium mica route is 69841 yuan/ton, a decrease of 1.30% on a daily basis, and the loss has expanded to 7060 yuan/ton. The quarterly cash cost at the salt lake end is 31868 yuan/ton, maintaining a significant cost advantage and a profit margin of 32132 yuan/ton, stimulating salt lake enterprises to maintain high load production.
The futures market presents a Contango structure, with the main contract LC2507 closing at 63020 yuan/ton, a weekly decline of 4.60%, and a holding volume of 290300 lots, an increase of 22900 lots month on month. In terms of basis, the spot price rose by 2230 yuan to the main contract and 950 yuan to the next month's contract, an increase of 1260 yuan and 980 yuan respectively from the previous values, reflecting that the spot price fell less than the futures price. The revision of the forward supply-demand balance sheet shows that the global surplus of lithium carbonate in 2025 has been reduced from the estimated 280000 tons at the beginning of the year to 190000 tons, but the surplus in China still reaches 145000 tons, and the available days of inventory have been extended to 23 days, suppressing the price rebound space.