Lithium mine auctions in China's Sichuan draw thousands of high bids

BEIJING (Reuters) - Two lithium mine auctions in China's southwestern Sichuan province that began this week have received nearly 7,000 bids, with prices hundreds of times higher than starting levels and rising as of Thursday, a provincial government body said.

An auction for a five-year exploration right to the Jiada Lithium Mine in Maerkang city that started on Thursday had received 4,470 bids as of 0855 GMT, according to auction data from the Sichuan Public Resources Trading Center.

The highest bid hit 2.5 billion yuan ($346.81 million), 783 times the starting price of 3.19 million yuan.

The other auction, for five-year exploration rights to the Lijiagoubei Lithium Mine, started on Wednesday and had generated 2,414 bids as of Thursday afternoon, the data showed, with bids reaching 820 million yuan, more than 1,400 times above the starting price at 570,000 yuan on Wednesday.

Information on bidders was not disclosed. The auctions will continue until no bid comes in for ten minutes.

Both mines are located at Aba, a Tibetan and Qiang autonomous prefecture in northwestern Sichuan. The region where the mines are located is home to about 1.4 million tonnes of lithium, a mining report by Aba government in January showed.

Zhao Hong, a mining analyst at Beijing Sheng Ming Assets Appraisal, said the strong auction interest reflected demand for the metal and limited domestic resources in China, as well as low starting prices.

China's Ministry of Natural Resources said in June that the two mines would be auctioned.

Last year, a 54.3% stake in Yajiang Snowway Mining Development, which owns a Sichuan lithium mine, sold for 2 billion yuan at auction, 600 times higher than the starting price, according to a platform run by e-commerce site JD.com.

China, the world's top electric vehicle (EV) maker, will see lithium demand for EV manufacture grow by an average of 20.4% annually from 2023 to 2032, while its lithium mining output will rise by an average of 6% annually over the same period, according to BMI Research.

The surge on the auction market contrasts a depressed spot market this year that has been weakened by slow demand in the immediate term and rising supplies.

Spot lithium carbonate prices in China are around 260,000 yuan per tonne, less than half a peak near 600,000 yuan per tonne last November.

($1 = 7.2086 Chinese yuan renminbi)

(Reporting by Siyi Liu and Andrew Hayley; Editing by Tony Munroe and Barbara Lewis)