Trading Economics provides Lithium pricing based on spot prices for Lithium Carbonate, 99.5% Li2CO3 min, battery grade, traded in China. Lithium is a silver-white light metal. Lithium hydroxide is used in batteries for electrical vehicles and mobile phones.
Quality and Grade of Lithium: Battery grade (higher purity) commands premium prices over industrial grades. Production Costs: The costs to extract and process lithium from brine or mineral sources play a critical role in its market price.
The pricing for Lithium Carbonate 99.5% (CNY/mt) is considered the benchmark for lithium pricing worldwide. Lithium Carbonate 99.2%: Technical or Industrial Grade, used in glass, ceramics, and greases. Lithium 99.9%: Used in pharmaceuticals or aerospace applications where a high degree of purity is necessary.
Lithium Carbonate 99.5%: Battery Grade, essential for lithium-ion batteries in EVs and portable electronics. The pricing for Lithium Carbonate 99.5% (CNY/mt) is considered the benchmark for lithium pricing worldwide. Lithium Carbonate 99.2%: Technical or Industrial Grade, used in glass, ceramics, and greases.
Get up-to-speed with our battery raw material prices, news, trends and forecasts. The price of lithium is falling, but some Western companies have recently announced more investments in the Lithium Triangle – a region of South America comprising parts of Argentina, Chile and Bolivia.
China produces an estimated 80% of the entire world’s lithium-ion batteries each year, and about 60% of all electric vehicle batteries. As a result, Chinese prices for battery-grade lithium (i.e. lithium carbonate with over 99.5% purity) have become one of the foremost proxies for the price performance of lithium as a commodity.