Battery Minerals: Lithium, Cobalt & Graphite

Battery minerals are bought on what is inside them. Spodumene concentrate is priced per dry tonne on a 6% Li₂O basis against the Fastmarkets and Platts CIF China references; battery-grade lithium carbonate is specified at 99.5% Li₂CO₃ and battery-grade lithium hydroxide monohydrate at 56.5% LiOH minimum; cobalt hydroxide is paid as a percentage of the cobalt metal price on its assayed cobalt; and natural flake graphite is sold by mesh size and fixed carbon, with fine flake milled into 99.95% C spherical graphite for anodes. UN Comtrade 2024 export declarations put lithium carbonate (HS 2836.91) at USD 3.09 billion, led by Chile at USD 2.33 billion and Argentina at USD 406 million; lithium hydroxide and oxide (HS 2825.20) at USD 2.77 billion, led by China at USD 2.22 billion; cobalt oxides and hydroxides (HS 2822.00) at USD 416 million from the reporters that filed; and natural graphite in flakes and powder (HS 2504.10) at USD 389 million, led by China, Madagascar and Brazil. Australia shipped about 1.98 million MT of spodumene concentrate in the first half of 2025, almost all of it to China.

CBIL is a commodity brokerage company and brokers battery minerals between miners, converters, refiners and trader allocations on one side and lithium converters, cathode and precursor plants, anode makers, refractory and chemical producers and traders on the other. Origin rules are part of every file: Zimbabwe allows lithium concentrate only under Ministry quotas ahead of a full concentrate ban set for January 2027, Nigeria bars raw lithium ore exports, DRC cobalt hydroxide ships only within ARECOMS export quotas and DRC copper and cobalt concentrates are banned, and Chinese flake and spherical graphite need a MOFCOM dual-use export licence. Cobalt from the DRC and any artisanal source is worked only with due diligence to the OECD Guidance for minerals from conflict-affected and high-risk areas and its Annex II risks, and US-bound material is checked against the UFLPA entity list. Concentrate moves in bulk Supramax and Handysize lots, and chemicals and graphite in bags by container, on FOB, CFR and CIF terms. Send the product, grade, tonnage and discharge port, and the enquiry is screened and worked against it.