Source of this article: Times Finance Author: Lin Qian
"Now the battery-grade lithium carbonate is 430,000 yuan / ton. But it's useless if you want to buy it now, and we can't ship it, and we'll talk about it later. On January 27, an upstream materials supplier in Shanghai told Times Finance.
Entering 2022, lithium carbonate has shown a crazy upward trend. According to business agency data, on January 1, the average price of battery-grade lithium carbonate in East China was 282,000 yuan / ton, and industrial-grade lithium carbonate was 266,000 yuan / ton. As of the 27th of this month, the comprehensive price of industrial-grade lithium carbonate was 350,000-383,000 yuan / ton, and the comprehensive price of battery-grade lithium carbonate was 360,000-410,000 yuan / ton, in other words, the increase was at least 31.6% and 27.7% respectively.
"Don't say more than 200,000, even if it is more than 300,000, now even industrial-grade lithium carbonate can not be bought." The above material supplier said. In view of the crazy rise in the price of lithium carbonate, some investors made suggestions to Tibet Mining on the interactive platform, saying, "This year, the price of lithium carbonate is fierce, many times it will rise by 5,000 yuan / ton a day, and the company's price of 15 days is not appropriate, seriously damaging the interests of the company, it is recommended to change to the current price sales."
Benefiting from the high prosperity of the new energy industry, Tibet Mining disclosed its performance forecast, and it is expected to achieve a net profit attributable to the shareholders of the listed company of 110 million yuan to 165 million yuan in 2021, compared with a loss of 48.5167 million yuan in the same period last year; deducting non-net profit of 85 million yuan - 127.5 million yuan. The company said in the announcement that in 2021, the company firmly grasped the rising trend of the lithium salt market, and the company increased the sales of products (lithium salt products, chromite), and the gross profit of sales increased significantly.
For the price trend of lithium salt materials such as lithium carbonate after the year, the analyst of lithium carbonate of the business company also believes that the production of lithium carbonate in January has declined for several consecutive weeks, and the gap between supply and demand is still enlarging. The demand for cathode material scheduling is still high, the upstream shipment situation is still tight, and it is expected that the price of lithium carbonate may rise strongly after the year.
The aforementioned material suppliers also said that "the price of lithium carbonate will definitely be higher in the next year, and we are not in a hurry to sell."
Source | Tianqi Lithium official website crazy lithium carbonate
"At the end of the year now, everyone is basically a tentative offer, because even if the offer is very few people inquire, 430,000 / ton although it sounds very exaggerated, but in fact, it is fine, to know that at the end of 2020, a ton of lithium carbonate is about 40,000 yuan." On January 27, Li Zhen (pseudonym), a materials merchant in Jiangxi, revealed to Times Finance that they are currently quoting 410,000 yuan / ton, but no one has inquired.
Although no one cares, but Li Zhen is not worried, in his view, the current market supply and demand mismatch of lithium carbonate is very obvious, the price continues to rise is inevitable, although it will not necessarily exceed 500,000 yuan / ton as the brokerage company expected, but there is no doubt that the price will continue to rise after the year.
However, Li Zhen revealed that in this wave of the market, although the scale of his company has expanded several times, it has not earned as much as the outside world imagines.
"In 2019, 2020, the price of lithium carbonate will not be so exaggerated, our annual profit is also more than a dozen points, and although the price is almost 10 times that of before, our profit margin is almost the same as before." Li Zhen said, "The price of upstream ore is rising too much, and the cost is also rising. In the past, lithium mica was only a thousand yuan a ton, and now it is more than five or six thousand."
Source | Tianqi Lithium official website
Li Zhen has a similar experience with a Beijing-based materials merchant Wang Feng (pseudonym), who revealed to Times Finance that his company's performance in the market is acceptable, and its revenue in 2021 has increased by 10% compared with 2020, but the company's profits have been squeezed by costs.
"Our relatively small scale of the industrial chain midstream enterprises are relatively disadvantaged, because there is no way to control the upstream ore, can only passively accept the price increase, and customers are more sensitive to the price, resulting in a part of the cost needs to bear their own, there is no way to transmit to the downstream." Wang Feng told Times Finance.
"Although the price of ore has soared, it is fortunate that as long as there is a need, the head mining chamber will supply it in a timely manner, and there is no situation of pressing goods and hoarding goods." Wang Feng said. Li Zhen revealed to Times Finance that because his company is in Jiangxi, in the same circle, everyone looks up and does not look down, there is rarely malicious price increase, and there has been no problem in supply.
It is worth mentioning that under the tide of multiple rounds of lithium material price increases, the ecology of the new energy industry chain has been tested. Some people in the new energy industry said, "In 2022, the focus of the industry should be on how to develop the industrial chain sustainably and healthily." If the upstream price increase is so strong, the downstream eats the last meal and does not eat, how to talk about development? ”
The development of industrial chain enterprises has diverged
"In fact, we previously expected that the price of lithium carbonate may be about 180,000 yuan / ton, which is also the highest price in history." But last year, after stabilizing for a period of time, the price of materials suddenly rose by 220,000 yuan / ton, and then it was out of control." For the phenomenon of rising prices of lithium salts such as lithium carbonate, Li Zhen revealed that in addition to the impact of market supply and demand, upstream miners have seen the trend to raise the price of ore, resulting in high material costs is also a major reason.
An insider of a leading domestic miner recently told Times Finance, "Our industry is cyclical. In 18 years and 19 years, the development of the industry fell into a trough, which also led to a large number of bankruptcies of many overseas miners, coupled with the repeated attacks of the epidemic, the reaction of miners could not keep up with the downstream changes, and the output could not meet the demand, which led to the continuous rise in the price of ore and materials. In fact, we also hope to stabilize in a price range that everyone can accept and ensure the good and stable development of the industry."
Qu Yinfei, a lithium analyst at the new energy division of Shanghai Steel Union, said in an interview with the media that the demand for terminal new energy vehicles is strong, the penetration rate is rapidly increasing, and new projects of cathode materials are frequent; the demand for lithium hydroxide at home and abroad is expected to grow well, and affected by the rise in the price of lithium carbonate, the market will continue to rise to repair the price difference.
"Unlike small enterprises in the industrial chain like ours, even if the price of ore and materials continues to rise, the manufacturers with mineral resources in Ganfeng Lithium and Tianqi Lithium will live a very moist life." Wang Feng said.
Recently, Ganfeng Lithium and Tianqi Lithium have successively released 2021 annual performance forecasts. Among them, Ganfeng Lithium expects that the net profit attributable to the shareholders of listed companies in 2021 will be 4.8 billion yuan to 5.5 billion yuan, an increase of 368.45% to 436.76% year-on-year, and it is expected that the net profit after deducting non-deductions for the whole year will be 2.9 billion yuan to 3.6 billion yuan, an increase of 621% to 795.04% year-on-year. Tianqi Lithium expects to achieve a net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies of 1.8 billion to 2.4 billion yuan in 2021, which exceeds market expectations.
Under the market, there is obvious performance differentiation between large and small enterprises and upstream and downstream enterprises, but Wang Feng has a good mentality, and he believes that in the market, everyone eats according to their own abilities. Head miners and enterprises can achieve better performance in the market, which is their ability. Although its own company is under pressure in the short term, it believes that it can impress customers with more high-quality products and services, thereby enhancing the competitiveness of enterprises.
Wang Feng's enterprises are small in scale, and there are very few situations such as insufficient upstream ore supply, but the power battery manufacturers who are constantly expanding and expanding need to ensure a relatively stable supply of raw materials in the dynamically changing market, otherwise it will be impossible to expand production and increase the scale.
Taking CATL as an example, Yongxing Materials recently announced that it intends to establish a joint venture with CATL to jointly invest and build a total investment of not more than 2.5 billion yuan, and plans to build a project with an annual output of 50,000 tons of lithium carbonate production capacity. Tianhua Chaojing announced that it intends to set up a joint venture with CATL to build a 100,000-ton lithium carbonate smelting capacity project.
In addition, in order to alleviate the pressure brought about by frequent price increases in the upstream, not only lithium salt manufacturers, but also power battery manufacturers and downstream OEMs have also announced price increases. Some insiders said that compared with the impact of subsidies on enterprises, the main cost pressure of car companies at present comes from the price increase of raw materials.
Source | Internet
According to CCTV financial reports, due to the sharp rise in raw material prices, many car companies have begun to announce price increases, on January 21, BYD announced that the official guidance price of new energy models will be adjusted, ranging from 1,000-7,000 yuan. Before BYD, a number of car companies have announced price increases. In January this year, Nezha Automobile raised the price of its models by 2,000 yuan to 5,000 yuan. On January 11, the official website of Xiaopeng Automobile showed that the price of all Xiaopeng models after subsidies was raised, with an increase of about 4300-5900 yuan.