Elevra's Ewoyaa exit releases cash and a future funding obligation
The completed sale brings US$71m before fees and taxes. The transferred funding and offtake rights explain why the price alone cannot value the whole Ghanaian project.
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Lithium
The most violent price chart in the complex. Mind the units.
Bulls vs. Bears — LithiumThe state of the argument, from recent news flow
The Bull Case
- No credible mass-market battery chemistry replaces lithium this decade.
- Low prices are curtailing supply and killing projects — sowing the next squeeze.
- Grid-scale storage is a second demand engine on top of EVs.
- Western buyers want ex-China lithium chemicals and will pay to de-risk.
- Permitting and ramp delays mean new supply chronically arrives late.
The Bear Case
- The market is violently reflexive — every spike over-invites supply.
- Brine, claystone and DLE expansions can flood the market when prices recover.
- There is no real scarcity of lithium in the crust — only of cheap, fast supply.
- EV demand forecasts keep getting cut; the curve is softer than 2022 assumed.
- Most juniors sit high on the cost curve and don't survive a low-price year.
64WarmHeat Index · 0–100
Model demonstration: news, volume and equity inputs are illustrative.
Prices (US$)
| Lithium Carbonate US$/t (LCE) · Illustrative sample · 2026-06-16 | 13,500 | +22.0% 6M | +38.0% 1Y | 64 |
Lithium Carbonate — trailing price
Illustrative sample · 2026-06-16The desk — term structure & inventories
What the spot price won't tell you: the shape of the futures curve (who's paying up for metal now) and where warehouse stock is heading. Figures are indicative until a live LME/CME feed is wired.
Lithium Carbonate
Illustrative example — not current exchange quotes. This curve does not update automatically.
Contango+7.8% / yr1-yr roll -8.8%
Deferreds trade over spot — comfortable supply and positive carry. A long rolling the front bleeds the spread.
Sample data for explaining term structure.
Lithium is the core battery metal and the most reflexive market in the basket — it overshoots up, overshoots down, and takes a lot of juniors with it. Brine vs hard-rock, LCE vs hydroxide vs carbonate: the units decide the argument, so we keep them straight.
Latest takes
PLS has borrowed for the long build to P2000
A completed US$700m note issue adds funding flexibility and an 8% coupon. P2000 production remains a 2029 target, with infrastructure spending outside its headline budget.
Battery recyclers need feedstock before retired EV volumes grow
The IEA’s 2026 battery outlook identifies a long wait for retired EV batteries. Recyclers need to fund their operations and secure material during that period.
Liontown approved a 50% expansion in the month lithium fell 25%. Read the cost line, not the volume line.
Liontown will spend A$389m to take Kathleen Valley to a five-year average of about 780,000 dmt a year. The volume made the headlines. The cost line is what earns the money, and every extra tonne is still unsold.
Jindalee Is Taking McDermitt to Nasdaq via a SPAC. The ASX Shareholders Ride Along.
Jindalee Lithium (ASX:JLL) is folding its McDermitt project into a new US entity, US Elemental Inc., and merging it with Nasdaq-listed blank-cheque company Constellation Acquisition Corp I. Pro-forma enterprise value is pitched at US$571m, Jindalee keeps more than 80 per cent, and the combined company is targeting the ticker ULIT in Q4 2026 — pending shareholder and listing sign-off, a PIPE that isn't fully raised yet, and a live federal lawsuit over the project's exploration approval.
Lithium isn’t a cost-curve tape this month. It’s a Yichun EIA notice.
Jianxiawo is still idle. Yifeng’s ecology bureau said so on 7 August; carbonate then ran from about 140,000 to 154,000 RMB/t in a week. An EIA pre-acceptance notice (17–28 August) knocked the same contract from 152,000 to 149,000 RMB/t the next day. Benchmark has about 4% of global supply and about 60kt LCE hanging on the restart. That is a Chinese licensing tape, not an Australian unit-cost tape.
Liontown hits its 1.5Mtpa run-rate and turns cash-positive — the spodumene cycle just turned with it
Liontown reached its Kathleen Valley underground run-rate target early and booked its first positive net cash flow as spodumene prices rebounded, while Pilbara Minerals posted record output at A$560–600/t costs.
Lithium nearly doubled in a quarter. The knife stopped falling — now the units decide who wins.
The most violent chart in the complex just V'd off a nine-year low — battery-grade carbonate roughly doubled through Q1 2026 and sits up around 30% on the year. Before you chase it, get straight on brine vs hard-rock, carbonate vs hydroxide, and who actually has the cost curve to print.
Lithium operations on the map
| Operation | Country | Owner | Stage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Greenbushes | Australia | Talison (Tianqi/IGO + Albemarle JV) | Producing |
| Salar de Atacama | Chile | SQM & Albemarle (CORFO leases) | Producing |
| Thacker Pass | United States | Lithium Americas (GM offtake) | Construction |
| Pilgangoora | Australia | Pilbara Minerals | Producing |