Li2CO3 smelters with in-house mines maintain profitability

In a visit of Sinomine Resource Group ("Sinomine" or the "Company") last week (Jan 22-26) organized by Mysteel lithium carbonate research team to understand their lithium carbonate production situation, it is learned that the Company is still able to make profit based on the current lithium carbonate price level.

Sinomine Resource Group

Sinomine's lithium carbonate capacity is held by its wholly-owned subsidiary – Dongpeng New Materials – with a volume of 60,000 tonnes/year, and the current cost is around Yuan 80,000/tonne. Therefore, when the spot lithium carbonate prices were around Yuan 90,000/tonne recently, the Company managed to maintain profitability.

It is reported that the Company plans to reduce the cost further by 10% in 2024 through transition to Photovoltaic power generation and optimal of transportation routes.

In addition to smelting capacity, the Company has also invested in overseas mines, including two mining tenements in Africa and one in Canada. The tenements in Africa produced 250,000 tonnes lithium concentrate in 2023, and 200,000 tonnes were shipped back to China. The production in 2024 is scheduled at 50,000 tonnes/month in 2024.

The tenement in Canada is capable of producing 30,000 tonnes spodumene concentrate per year.

Written by Aggie Hu, huchenying@mysteel.com