Vanadium pentoxide (V2O5) in China's spot market held in a narrow band at the start of November, with SunSirs (生意社) reporting a benchmark price of 97,916.67 yuan per tonne on both 2 and 3 November 2026 — effectively unchanged across the two sessions.
Trader quotes sit just above the benchmark
SunSirs' daily quotation update for 2 November listed trader Hubei 789 Chemical Co. (湖北七八九化工有限公司) offering 99% content V2O5 at 98,000 yuan per tonne, with delivery in Wuhan, Hubei, and origin listed as Hubei 789. Two separate listings carried the same 98,000 yuan/t level, putting physical offers marginally above the published benchmark.
The same update also includes a 99.5% battery-grade V2O5 specification line, but no price was shown for it in the published excerpt — a reminder that the material most directly relevant to vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) electrolyte sits in a separate, thinner quoted segment from standard 99% pentoxide.
Mean spread widens negatively
In a separate 2 November update published at 18:15, SunSirs noted that the V2O5 mean spread (均差) continued to widen negatively to -262, pointing to a slightly softening, narrowing price trend around 97,900 yuan/t.
A negative-drifting spread while the headline benchmark barely moves suggests sellers are shading offers rather than pushing headline levels higher — a classic soft-market signature in a concentrated, thinly traded chemical.
Why the benchmark matters to electrolyte buyers
SunSirs states that its benchmark price is derived from a price big-data model and is used as a settlement reference. For VRFB developers and electrolyte producers, that makes the Chinese assessment the de facto index for feedstock contracts — particularly since vanadium has no monthly price series in the World Bank Pink Sheet, forcing the industry to rely on USGS, Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, industry association data and Chinese price agencies such as SunSirs and SMM.
For scale, USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries data put the 2024 average for 98% V2O5 at about 5.5 USD/lb (roughly 12 USD/kg), down from about 7.5 USD/lb in 2023. At 98,000 yuan/t, current Chinese spot is quoting around 98 yuan per kilogram — a level that keeps electrolyte input costs firm even while trading activity remains subdued and the trend edges softer.
This article was assisted by AI analysis. Please refer to the original source for official information.