Companhia Brasileira de Lítio (CBL) Brings Brazil’s First Digital Lithium Sales Channel to Market

Like other lithium producers, Companhia Brasileira de Lítio (CBL) faced a volatile market environment throughout 2024 and 2025. As Antônio Marco Santos, CBL’s Marketing and Logistics Coordinator, put it, liquidity in the lithium market was “still developing,” and CBL wanted a way to strengthen price transparency and secure more competitive commercial outcomes on its spot volumes without giving up the close relationships and proximity it valued with its existing customers.

That search led CBL, in August 2025, to Metalshub’s Sales Solution, where it became one of the first Brazilian lithium producers to run structured, digital bidding events for lithium carbonate. Leading the initiative on CBL’s side were Antônio Marco Santos and Mateus Serrão, working closely with CEO Vinícius and Metalshub’s commercial team throughout onboarding and the first bidding events.

After a swift onboarding of a few days, CBL published its first Request for Bids (RfB) of battery-grade and of technical-grade lithium carbonate. Invitees included both CBL’s own established customers and new lithium buyers already active on Metalshub’s network.

The trading window was structured around CBL’s buyer base: Roughly 3.5 days for Chinese buyers, who made up the majority of participants, and roughly 3 days for European buyers – giving both groups enough time to respond without dragging out the process. CBL supported the launch with a co-branded press release and LinkedIn promotion, extending its reach beyond the buyers it or Metalshub approached directly.

CBL’s bidding events went live in the second week of September 2025, the same week CATL announced it would reopen a major lithium mine – news that sent spodumene and lithium carbonate prices sharply lower across the market overnight. It was, by the team’s own account, some of the most difficult timing a first-time seller could face.

Even so, the process delivered value CBL hadn’t had access to before:

• Promotion generated real inbound interest. The press release and LinkedIn campaign reached buyers CBL had no prior relationship with — including companies that reached out directly to request supplier information after seeing the announcement circulate.
• The bidding process surfaced a buyer CBL had never worked with. Among the participants was Ningbo Veken Jiafeng, a Chinese lithium buyer CBL had not sourced through before.
• That new relationship became CBL’s first transaction on Metalshub. Weeks later, CBL and Veken concluded a trial shipment of battery-grade lithium carbonate — CBL’s first deal closed on the Metalshub platform, with a buyer the bidding process had introduced them to.

CBL’s team has described Metalshub as simple to use and valuable for reaching buyers it would not otherwise have found — feedback that held even through a bidding cycle that landed in one of the toughest weeks the lithium market saw in 2025. With existing offtake commitments covering CBL’s spodumene concentrate through early 2027, the two companies continue to discuss how CBL can bring further lithium carbonate, and in time spodumene, spot volumes to Metalshub’s buyer network.