For the deviation between the price rise of lithium salt and the stock price trend of lithium ore, it is difficult for the seller and buyer institutions to explain clearly, so they can only wait for the next catalysts, such as the performance forecast of industry leaders.
As of January 17, three of the 14 companies included in the wind lithium index Sichuan Yahua Industrial Group Co.Ltd(002497) , Suzhou Ta&A Ultra Clean Technology Co.Ltd(300390) and Sinomine Resource Group Co.Ltd(002738) had issued performance forecasts, with a year-on-year growth rate of about 200%.
In terms of quarters, the profit scale of the above three companies showed the characteristics of increasing quarter by quarter, benefiting from the rising effect of lithium salt price in the fourth quarter on the average sales price of products.
Among them, Sinomine Resource Group Co.Ltd(002738) grew the fastest. In the fourth quarter (calculated according to the median of performance forecast), the profit increased by 76.4% month on month compared with the third quarter. The month on month growth of Suzhou Ta&A Ultra Clean Technology Co.Ltd(300390) and Sichuan Yahua Industrial Group Co.Ltd(002497) in the current period were 53.4% and 16.9% respectively, with an overall month on month increase of about 49% compared with the third quarter.
The above three companies are also raw material outsourcing enterprises. Although most companies sign underwriting agreements to ensure the supply of raw materials, most of them “lock the quantity without locking the price”, that is, under the background of the rise of lithium concentrate in the fourth quarter, its raw material cost may also be increased accordingly.
In terms of the cost composition of lithium salt, lithium concentrate is the main cost source at present.
At the end of last year, according to the calculation results of 21 hard core investment and research of our newspaper, the production cost of lithium carbonate per ton was about 152000 yuan to 168600 yuan, of which the cost of lithium concentrate was 126000-142000 yuan / ton, and the auxiliary materials and processing cost of soda ash, sulfuric acid, coal and so on were about 26000 yuan per ton.
In other words, the cost from lithium concentrate accounts for more than 80% of the production cost per ton of lithium salt. Therefore, the profits of lithium salt production enterprises relying on outsourcing lithium concentrate in the fourth quarter were obviously suppressed by the cost side.
In contrast, industry leaders such as Ganfeng Lithium Co.Ltd(002460) , Tianqi Lithium Corporation(002466) and Qinghai Salt Lake Industry Co.Ltd(000792) will have stronger performance flexibility if they release performance forecast.
Among them, Ganfeng Lithium Co.Ltd(002460) the self-sufficiency rate of raw materials at this stage is slightly poor, which can not be compared with the latter two enterprises, but fortunately, the company has a wide layout in the upstream Salt Lake and spodumene fields. For example, the Australian Marion mountain mine with 50% equity is the main raw material source of the company.
Tianqi Lithium Corporation(002466) originally, it was all from greenbushes lithium mine in Australia, and the allocated spodumene quantity could not even be fully digested by its own capacity.
Qinghai Salt Lake Industry Co.Ltd(000792) , the lithium salt business carrier is the subsidiary Lanke lithium industry, and the raw material is the remaining old brine produced by the listed company’s potassium fertilizer. The cost of lithium extraction from Salt Lake is generally lower than that from ore.
Therefore, only from the perspective of raw material supply, lithium salt cost and profit margin change, the profit growth rate of the above industry leaders with resource advantages in the fourth quarter will be significantly higher than that of Sichuan Yahua Industrial Group Co.Ltd(002497) and other companies.
In addition, from the perspective of comprehensive industry operation, major lithium salt enterprises will also enter the stage of large-scale profit cashing from the fourth quarter of 2021.
