China resorts to price fixing as lithium demand craters
Reuters: China's top lithium producers agreed this week to set a floor price of 250,000 yuan ($36,380) per tonne of lithium carbonate, six people familiar with the matter said, in an effort to slow a plunge in the price of the battery raw material. The price was agreed on Tuesday by around 10 companies including Tianqi Lithium and Ganfeng Lithium that met on the sidelines of a conference in Nanchang in southern China, said one person who attended the meeting and five others briefed on the discussions. The people declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the topic, which was discussed in a closed-door meeting. Ganfeng said in a response to Reuters that no discussions on a floor price had taken place. "Ganfeng always insists that product prices should be determined by the market, and will never take the initiative to control prices to influence the market," a company representative said in an email. It added that no company in the industry has such capabilities. T