According to China General Administration of Customs (GACC), China's spodumene imports stood at 258,000 tonnes in August, a drop of 31.97% from July, against an increase of 5.43% from last year. The MoM decrease was mainly caused by falling imports from Australia, which fell 46.2% month on month and 20.4% year on year at 173,000 tonnes in August. The imports from Brazil also lost 49.4% MoM and 57.4% YoY at 8,000 tonnes.
Source: GACC
Looking back on August, the constantly falling lithium carbonate prices shall account for the palpably drop in spodumene imports, in which circumstance domestic smelters that relied on outsourced spodumene suffered serious losses.
Source: Mysteel
China's spodumene imports totaled 2.66 million tonnes over January-August, rising 56.1% YoY. Specifically, the imports from Australia reported 2.23 million tonnes, up 39.5% YoY; 81,000 tonnes from Brazil, rising 18.1% YoY; 156,000 tonnes from Nigeria, surging 494.5% YoY; and 121,000 tonnes from Zimbabwe, burgeoning 5,947.4% YoY.
Written by Aggie Hu, huchenying@mysteel.com