He lithium price It has not stopped its fall in recent months and this week it fell to its lowest level in approximately 27 months, according to its price in China, the largest world consumption center for the key mineral in the energy transition and electromobility.
After the boom of 2022, 2023 has been a year of adjustment. To the point that on Tuesday the metric ton of lithium carbonate was traded at $13,394approaching the lowest figure in recent times, recorded on August 13, 2021, when it stood at $13,185, according to data from the Investing financial platform.
Since that date, «white gold» began to experience a frenetic increase and months later reached its historical maximum, in November 2022, over 80 thousand dollars the ton, according to Third.
Daniel Jimenezmanaging partner of the specialized consulting firm iLiMarkets, analyzed that the mineral «has already gone below what he would have considered as a floor,» projecting that the price of lithium «It shouldn’t go much lower.»
«Due to market dynamics, prices should start to rebound relatively later. That could be within the next three months,» she noted.
Likewise, he estimated that in «the long term there will not be a huge deficit» between supply and demand given the high development of lithium projects, which is why he estimates that it is «very unlikely that we will return to prices of US$50 thousand or more.» .
Meanwhile, the senior mining industry analyst Andrés González Eyzaguirrefrom the consulting firm Plusmining, pointed out that, «according to our projections, starting in 2025 or 2026 it is not expected that supply will be able to grow at the pace of demand, which would lead to a supply deficit starting in 2027. which in turn will put pressure on substantive price growth.»
In the opinion of José Ignacio Pérezanalyst at Bci Corredor de Bolsa Studies, the downward pressure on lithium will continue in the short term «as long as robust economic stimuli are not generated in China that will allow improving the speed with which sales of electric vehicles grow»