SYDNEY: Pilbara Minerals Limited announced the execution of an agreement with GLX Digital Limited, which introduces a new digital trading and sales platform for Pilgangoora Project spodumene concentrate production.
The platform is intended to provide Pilbara Minerals with a further avenue for sales growth, offering interested parties the ability to access current and future unallocated spodumene concentrate product from the Company’s operations.
GLX Digital already provides a digital trade platform to the natural gas industry which has been successfully deployed over the past five years, with multiple buyers and sellers over multiple jurisdictions.
The digital trading platform to be operated by Pilbara Minerals will be known as the “Battery Material Exchange” and is intended to facilitate discreet sales of its spodumene concentrate product by either auction (screen trading), tender process or bilateral sales agreement.
The platform provides anonymity to all users ensuring secure customer relationships, with the information security management system being certified to ISO 27001, which is widely regarded as best practice in relation
to information security.
The selling platform will define a timeframe for sale of each cargo and will utilise the Company’s existing sales terms and conditions, inclusive of a letter of credit. In the case of a sale by auction, the platform will provide a channel for multiple potential buyers to anonymously bid on that cargo.
The successful bidder (who will continue to remain anonymous) will then have the cargo loaded on a vessel in accordance with the defined
terms and conditions for that sale, including the final auction price.
Notwithstanding the emergence of new buyers in the market, Pilbara Minerals acknowledges the importance of its offtake customers and their significance as key supporters of the Pilgangoora Project.
As such the new trading platform will operate in conjunction with the Company’s existing and new or future offtake agreements and will initially be used to sell unallocated or available spodumene concentrate that sits outside existing offtake terms.
The lithium raw materials market (among the broader battery materials segment) is set for another expected phase of rapid growth. Pilbara Minerals has recently witnessed a
material increase in new potential credible buyers of its spodumene concentrates (existing and emerging), with several chemical producers either entering the market for the first time or existing producers having already expanded (or planning to expand
production capacity in the near term).
Pilbara Minerals’ Battery Material Exchange is therefore expected to provide a new and important channel for customers with these new facilities to be able to access lithium raw materials.
The Company welcomes new customers as well as its existing customers (beyond their committed offtake tonnes) to utilise the trading platform to acquire additional product.
As the Company’s business continues to grow including integration into downstream processing opportunities, it is envisaged that further products may be added to the digital trading system over time.
This might include spodumene concentrate with differing product grades as well as other value-added lithium products for the battery
materials market. In short, it is intended that the Battery Materials Exchange will grow with Pilbara Mineral’s’ business over time.
Pilbara Minerals’ Managing Director and CEO, Ken Brinsden, said: “With significant growth in the battery raw materials supply chain now expected,
the introduction of our Battery Material Exchange trading platform should position Pilbara Minerals well to maximise its participation.
Creating a digital marketing and
sales platform represents a logical evolution for the industry and we are pleased to be working with GLX Digital to lead the industry.”