Benchmark Mineral Intelligence has launched a Lithium-ion Battery Raw Material Price Index. The new index allows users to accurately track real-world movements in lithium-ion battery raw material prices relative to key cathode types within the supply chain and to track the shifting cost structure of a key component of cathode and cell supply contracts.

Benchmark assembles the index using its market-leading price assessments including the IOSCO-accredited lithium, nickel, and cobalt prices. Benchmark also collects data for manganese sulfate and iron phosphate in-house to complete the index.

The index is published every month for the following lithium ion battery chemistries:

• NCM High-Nickel (8 and 9 series blends, e.g. NCM 811, NCM 9)

• NCM Mid-Nickel (5, 6, and 7 series blends, e.g., NCM 523, NCM 622)

• LFP (lithium iron phosphate)

The index is designed to be used directly by industry participants who wish to follow the relative changes of key raw material input costs of lithium-ion batteries. The index can be used to accurately tie contracts for cells to the raw material input in an open and transparent fashion.

The index is free to use and is published monthly via Benchmark’s Lithium-ion Battery Raw Material Price Index page. The underlying data is available to integrate directly into the users’ own analyses via a data feed.

For each battery chemistry, the index represents a weighted average change in the cost of the raw materials used to make the cathode indexed against a base of 100 in January 2020.

The index only considers the basket of raw material inputs for the cathode and does not account for anode materials or costs associated with refining and processing, or additional materials.

The input prices are chosen based on the technical and geographical features of each battery chemistry (for instance LFP production is almost wholly concentrated in China).

The index covers the following battery chemistries:

NCM MID-NICKEL

• Lithium hydroxide (CIF Asia)
• Cobalt hydroxide (CIF Asia)
• Nickel sulfate (CIF Asia)
• Manganese sulfate

NCM HIGH-NICKEL

• Lithium hydroxide (CIF Asia)
• Cobalt hydroxide (CIF Asia)
• Nickel sulfate (CIF Asia)
• Manganese sulfate

LFP

• Battery grade lithium carbonate (EXW China)
• Battery grade anhydrous iron phosphate

Lithium, cobalt, and nickel price data used in the index can be accessed through Benchmark’s price assessment subscriptions.