Since December, the price of lithium carbonate has continued to rise. The reporter of Securities Daily combed the data of the business agency and found that the price of battery grade lithium carbonate increased from 205000 yuan / ton on December 1 to 228000 yuan / ton on December 13, an increase of 23000 yuan / ton, or 11.2%. Experts interviewed by the Securities Daily believe that the price of lithium carbonate will continue to rise in the short term.
Wu Qi, executive director of Wuxi Digital Economy Research Institute, told the Securities Daily that as the main raw material of power batteries, lithium prices continued to rise sharply, mainly due to strong downstream demand, rapid increase in production, sales and penetration of medium Shanxi Guoxin Energy Corporation Limited(600617) vehicles, rapid development of energy storage industry, and short supply of lithium resources and lithium batteries in the upstream. At the same time, China’s lithium demand ranks first in the world, with an import dependence of 70%. However, since this year, due to various reasons such as the impact of the epidemic on transportation, the expansion of overseas lithium mine production has not met expectations. If the price continues to rise, it will have a great impact on the whole industry, and supervision and regulation should be strengthened in due time.
Liu Xiangdong, deputy director of the Economic Research Department of the China Center for international economic exchanges, also told the Securities Daily that due to the impact of the epidemic, the supply of lithium resources has tightened, while the demand for new energy vehicles has maintained a high growth trend, resulting in an upward trend in the upstream resource prices. At the same time, some manufacturers hoard to rise, which may lead to market distortion. Therefore, market supervision and regulation are needed to prevent individual manufacturers from hoarding and affecting the normal order of production.
According to Lou Yonggang, an analyst at Cinda securities, the lithium price has fully entered the third wave of accelerated rise stage. With the continuous warming of demand for new energy vehicles in the peak season of the fourth quarter, the upsurge of goods preparation at the end of the year will drive the lithium price to continue to accelerate its rise. It is expected that the supply of lithium resources will continue to be in short supply in 2022, and the price will rise further, which is expected to exceed 300000 yuan / ton.
The reporter noted that recently, many lithium battery enterprises have expanded their production. For example, Yibin Tianyuan Group Co.Ltd(002386) announced on December 13 that it plans to establish a new company to invest in the construction of 100000 t / a lithium iron phosphate cathode material project, and the company’s subsidiaries will build phosphoric acid and iron phosphate projects according to the actual situation. The total investment of the project is planned to be 2.389 billion yuan; Recently, Miracle Automation Engineering Co.Ltd(002009) said on the investor interaction platform, “since the expansion in August this year, the company’s lithium carbonate production capacity can reach 180-200 tons per month. When Tianqi jintaige production expansion and technical transformation project is fully completed, the lithium carbonate production capacity will be comprehensively increased to 5000 tons per year”.
“Some companies speed up and increase the production of lithium batteries in order to meet the strong demand of downstream industrial chains such as new energy vehicles.” Liu Xiangdong believes that driven by market demand, more enterprises will participate in investing in lithium batteries, expand production capacity and explore market opportunities. The key to solve the problem is to solve the supply side constraints. When the supply is insufficient, the lithium battery investment will face high cost pressure. Therefore, it is suggested that relevant enterprises grasp the market demand, actively layout upstream and increase lithium battery resource reserves.
Wu Qi believes that under the background of the national goal of “double carbon”, with the rapid development of energy storage and new energy enterprises, the lithium battery industry has ushered in a period of market opportunities. It is suggested to actively carry out the recycling of lithium materials and speed up the search for alternative materials while increasing the exploration and development of lithium resources.
(Securities Daily)
