Samenvatting van 2023. Welke recessie voor AMG?
Stijn Demeester
Okay. Okay. Maybe related, amidst the recent price declines seen in the Chinese spot markets, especially with lithium carbonate. Can you help us understand what gives you the confidence to reiterate the full year '23 guidance? Also noting that there will be downtime in Q3. So any sort of comfort you can give to the market because I think that's sort of one of the concern that is currently in the marketplace.
Heinz Schimmelbusch
Let me first of all say that we do this guidance very slowly. So we run a host of scenarios, as explained many times. And then we have various analyses of each of those scenarios. And then we select what we believe are the most realistic scenarios and we look at it and then we come to the conclusion of the guidance.
Now in '23, there will be an interruption of production of whatever 2, 3 weeks in Q3 when we switch from flow sheet, from the traditional flow sheet to the new flow sheet in the operation of spodumene production in Brazil. But that will be overcompensated by a rapid increase of production this year, substantial increase. Please note that, that substantial increase is also accompanied by a substantial increase of the tantalum production. So both lithium and tantalum will be higher in Q4 as ever before. Please also note that tantalum is 100% sold and lithium is 100% sold under long-term contract. This, by the way, is also true for ferrovanadium. We will very shortly now reach -- as we speak, actually, we are running at 100% capacity in Zanesville.
So the ferrovanadium production, which is also sold under long-term contract will contribute to the overall picture, vis-a-vis, in '23. So we have a strong quantity effect here. The price assumptions are extremely conservative. We are, of course, benefiting from the retail prices really in the first quarter reaching into the second quarter. But always remember, spodumene prices and hydroxide prices and carbonate prices have very different volatilities. The hydroxide prices went down slightly. The carbonate prices went down heavily. The spodumene prices in between but much less than the carbonate prices. So we are in a good sector of the lithium market. By the way, that extends into the future because in hydroxide we will produce, we will produce hydroxide in our refinery. So that's what makes us comfortable to reaffirm our guidance.