China opens lithium carbonate futures to overseas traders

China's Guangzhou Futures Exchange opened its yuan-denominated lithium carbonate futures and options to overseas traders on Friday.

This is the first new-energy metal futures directly opened to foreign traders at Guangzhou Futures Exchange, signaling a further strengthening of China's pricing influence in the global new-energy materials sector.

"The inclusion of overseas traders in lithium carbonate futures and options provides global lithium-ion battery enterprises with more convenient risk management tools. Lithium resource development involves long construction cycles and heavy capital inputs. Facing price fluctuation risks, relevant enterprises could use futures and options to lock in development margins and stabilize returns," said Guo Chenguang, an official of Guangzhou Futures Exchange.

Lithium carbonate, a core raw material for the lithium-ion battery industry, is widely used in the production of power batteries and energy storage batteries.

China is the world's largest producer, consumer, and importer of lithium carbonate, and has built a complete lithium-ion battery industry chain.

At present, a considerable number of overseas producers and trading firms already use the lithium carbonate futures price as a key pricing reference. By opening lithium carbonate futures and options to overseas traders, China's pricing power across the lithium-ion battery industry chain will be further strengthened.

"The direct inclusion of overseas traders in lithium carbonate futures and options this time is an important mark for China's lithium carbonate industry in its globalization. It will not only help Chinese lithium enterprises go out and secure returns on their overseas operations, but also allow overseas participants to price directly against China's futures, thus expanding the global influence of China's lithium carbonate futures price," said Duan Debing, vice president and secretary-general of China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association.

China opens lithium carbonate futures to overseas traders

Chinese scientists unveiled a large AI model for stratigraphy, the first of its kind in the world, in Suzhou City, east China's Jiangsu Province, on Friday, providing a globally shared database for the 4.6 billion years of evolution history of the Earth.

The model was unveiled together with other new tools in the field such as intelligent global stratigraphic profile comparison system at the fifth International Congress on Stratigraphy, which is scheduled from June 28 to July 3.

Stratigraphy is a fundamental discipline for interpreting the evolutionary history of the Earth, and it can provide core scientific basis for human beings to understand the origin of lives, the distribution of resources, and the evolution of climate.

"We hope that with the timeline and global big data, all the geological records of the Earth's 4.6 billion years of history can be sorted according to a unified time standard. In the past, scientists (of different countries) did their own research, and made scattered geological records. So in an era of AI, Chinese scientists are actually leading the way now," said Shen Shuzhong, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and vice chair of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS).

So far, China has discovered 11 Global Boundary Stratotype Sections and Points (GSSPs), ranking among the top in the world in terms of quantity.

The GSSPs are reference points on stratigraphic sections of rock which define the lower boundaries of stages on the International Chronostratigraphic Chart.

"Geological history has gone through several billion years, witnessing all kinds of events, such as the evolution of lives and climate, and mechanisms of various major geological events. What laws do the events follow? It is something that our modern Earth ecosystem needs to refer to," Shen said.

Chinese scientists unveil world's first large AI model for stratigraphy