The need to sate global lithium-ion requirements saw China’s battery prices rise alongside increasing demands from the electric vehicle market.
The average price of a lithium-ion battery being exported out of China rose $0.62 year-on-year, according to news website Industrial Minerals.
The country’s export statistics show batteries being shipped from China in November 2016 (the latest data) cost an average of $4.98/piece compared with $4.36/piece the year before.
As prices rose, so did the number of units being shipped, with November 2016 figures showing 142.79million lithium-ion batteries were exported compared to 136.6m batteries in November 2015.
The rise is believed to stem from growing global EV markets, which in turn pushed up the price of lithium, with 2017 contract prices around double 2016 levels.
China imported 2,408 tonnes of lithium carbonate at an average price of $10,774/tonne in November 2016— bringing its total import to 19,315 tonnes in the first 11 months of last year.
This was compared with just 727 tonnes at $5,841/tonne a year before, reported Industrial Minerals.
This is in stark contrast to the amount of lithium carbonate the country exported, which stood at 114 tonnes at an average price of $21,067/tonne in November 2016, compared with 156 tonnes at $8,051/tonne in November 2015.
