Benchmarks and Price Reporting Agencies

Price reporting agencies (PRAs) serve as the critical infrastructure of price discovery for most critical minerals. In the absence of deep, liquid exchange markets for materials like lithium, cobalt, rare earths, and vanadium, PRAs fill the gap by collecting market intelligence, surveying participants, and publishing price assessments that become the reference points for billions of dollars in annual trade. These assessments are embedded in supply contracts, used as settlement prices for financial derivatives, and relied upon by governments for policy analysis. Understanding how PRAs operate, what methodologies they employ, and where their limitations lie is essential for anyone navigating critical mineral markets.

Fastmarkets

Fastmarkets (formerly Metal Bulletin and Industrial Minerals) is the dominant price reporting agency for many critical minerals. Its lithium hydroxide CIF CJK (China, Japan, Korea) assessment is the settlement price for the LME lithium contract and one of the most widely referenced lithium benchmarks globally. Fastmarkets also publishes benchmark assessments for cobalt (standard-grade and alloy-grade), rare earth oxides (neodymium-praseodymium oxide, dysprosium oxide, terbium oxide), manganese sulfate, vanadium pentoxide, and numerous other specialty metals and minor metals.

Fastmarkets assessments are typically published on a weekly or biweekly basis, depending on the material. The methodology involves collecting transaction data, bid and offer information, and market intelligence from producers, consumers, traders, and brokers. Assessors apply editorial judgment to determine a price range that reflects the prevailing market for a defined specification, delivery basis, and payment terms. Fastmarkets is regulated under the EU Benchmarks Regulation and the UK Benchmarks Regulation, which impose governance, transparency, and conflict-of-interest requirements on benchmark administrators.

S&P Global Commodity Insights (Platts)

S&P Global Commodity Insights, operating under the Platts brand, has expanded aggressively into critical mineral price reporting. Platts publishes assessments for lithium carbonate, lithium hydroxide, cobalt, nickel sulfate, manganese, and graphite, among others. The Platts lithium carbonate CIF North Asia assessment competes directly with Fastmarkets for benchmark status in the Asian battery supply chain. Platts has also been active in developing price assessments for battery-grade materials tailored to the electric vehicle supply chain, including cathode precursor materials and anode feedstocks.

Platts employs a Market-on-Close (MOC) assessment methodology for some of its metals assessments, which involves collecting bids, offers, and transactions during a defined assessment window at the end of the trading day. This methodology, widely used in oil and gas markets, aims to provide a snapshot of the market at a specific point in time. For critical minerals, where trading activity may be sporadic, Platts also uses survey-based and editorial judgment approaches similar to those of Fastmarkets. S&P Global's broader data and analytics capabilities allow it to integrate price assessments with supply-demand analysis, cost modeling, and geopolitical risk evaluation.

Argus Media

Argus Media has a long history in commodity price reporting across energy and metals markets. In the critical minerals space, Argus publishes assessments for lithium, cobalt, nickel, rare earths, and several battery raw materials. Argus has differentiated itself through its focus on European and North American market coverage, complementing the Asia-centric benchmarks published by Fastmarkets and Platts. As Western governments push to build domestic critical mineral supply chains, demand for non-Asian price benchmarks has grown, positioning Argus to capture market share in these emerging pricing ecosystems.

Argus also publishes the Argus Green Metals assessments, which aim to provide price differentiation for critical minerals produced with lower carbon footprints or higher ESG standards. This reflects growing demand from automakers and battery manufacturers for sustainably sourced materials and the willingness of some buyers to pay a premium for verified low-carbon supply. The development of ESG-linked pricing is still in its early stages but represents a potentially significant evolution in how critical minerals are valued.

Asian Metal

Asian Metal is a China-based price reporting agency that provides extensive coverage of minor metals, rare earths, and specialty materials. Its price assessments are widely referenced within China's domestic market and by international participants trading Chinese-origin material. Asian Metal publishes prices for dozens of materials including antimony, bismuth, gallium, germanium, indium, magnesium, manganese, molybdenum, rare earth elements, selenium, silicon, tellurium, titanium, tungsten, and vanadium. For many of these niche materials, Asian Metal's assessments are the only regularly published price references available.

The breadth of Asian Metal's coverage reflects the reality that China is the world's largest producer and consumer of most minor and specialty metals. However, some international market participants have raised concerns about methodology transparency and the potential for Chinese market participants to influence assessments in markets with very few active traders. These concerns underscore the broader challenge of price transparency in concentrated critical mineral markets.

How Benchmarks Are Used in Contracts

PRA assessments serve as the pricing backbone for the majority of critical mineral term contracts. A typical supply contract specifies that the price for each delivery will be calculated as the average of a named PRA assessment over a defined period, often a calendar month or quarter, plus or minus a negotiated adjustment. The choice of benchmark is a key negotiation point, as different PRAs may publish materially different prices for ostensibly similar products due to differences in specification, delivery basis, methodology, and the pool of market participants surveyed.

Benchmark selection also has financial implications beyond the physical supply chain. Exchange-traded futures and options contracts settle against specific PRA assessments, meaning that participants using a different benchmark in their physical contracts face basis risk, the risk that the physical contract price and the hedging instrument price diverge. As critical mineral financial markets develop, the alignment between physical contract benchmarks and exchange settlement prices is becoming an increasingly important consideration.

Regulatory Oversight and Methodology Governance

The financial crisis of 2008 and subsequent benchmark manipulation scandals in LIBOR and energy markets led to increased regulatory scrutiny of price benchmarks globally. The EU Benchmarks Regulation (BMR), the UK BMR, and the IOSCO Principles for Oil Price Reporting Agencies now govern how commodity benchmarks are administered. Major PRAs operating in critical minerals are subject to these frameworks, which require them to maintain documented methodologies, manage conflicts of interest, subject their processes to external audit, and provide mechanisms for market participants to submit complaints.

Despite this regulatory framework, critical mineral benchmarks face unique challenges. The small number of market participants for some materials means that a single producer's decision to engage or withhold from the assessment process can significantly affect the published price. The opacity of Chinese domestic markets, which account for the majority of global processing for many critical minerals, further complicates the task of building representative global benchmarks. For these reasons, users of critical mineral price assessments should understand the underlying methodologies and limitations rather than treating published prices as infallible measures of market value. See also Market Manipulation and Transparency for more on these risks.