The move by a big Chinese lithium force to shut down its operations to survive the commodity price collapse is a strong indicator that the market for the battery metal has finally bottomed out, Mineral Resources has declared.

Lithium stocks jumped sharply on Wednesday based on unconfirmed reports that China’s CATL had decided to suspend its lithium lepidolite operations in Jiangxi. Lepidolite is a source of lithium ore typical in China’s geology, which is more energy-intensive and expensive to mine than the hard rock of Western Australia.