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The mid-April assessment by the London-HQed battery supply chain researcher and price reporting agency shows battery grade lithium carbonate down just under 1% over two weeks, but still within shouting distance of $80,000 a tonne. In April last year it was trading around $15,000.

Prices for lithium hydroxide, used in batteries with high-nickel cathodes, continued to rise in the first half of April. Hydroxide historically trades at a premium to carbonate and has been playing catch up – the gap is now down to around $400 a tonne, from a nearly $10,000 discount in February.

Benchmark says the slight downtrend in carbonate pricing “was not indicative of a wider market correction, but rather a temporary pause as a result of covid lockdowns in China, with expectations that prices will continue to increase in May if virus measures are eased.”