(Bloomberg) — Lithium’s price slump over the past year has been as dramatic as its climb — and it’s probably not finished yet. The battery material’s benchmark price in China is now down about 80% from its November 2022 record high. At that time, lithium miners were enjoying soaring profits and carmakers were bemoaning surging costs.
Now, lithium’s sharp decline, together with steep drops for nickel and cobalt, are driving battery prices to all-time lows, according to BloombergNEF.
For at least the next year, it looks like carmakers can cross off lithium costs as a major concern, with prices under pressure from a wave of new supply. The focus now is on how much further prices need to fall to stem the tide through production cuts.
“Prices are still substantially above the levels required to balance the market,” Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analysts wrote in a note earlier this week.
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