【SMM analysis】Lithium Battery Recycling Market Sluggish Post-Chinese New Year, Prices Show Mixed Trends

Published: Feb 28, 2026 18:00
SMM Feburary 26 News: This week, nickel sulphate and cobalt sulphate prices were basically flat, while lithium carbonate prices fell before rising again.

SMM Feburary 26 News:
 

After the Chinese New Year, most lithium battery recycling enterprises remained in a wait-and-see mode, with a cold market. On the raw material side, this week, lithium carbonate and nickel sulphate prices continued to rise, while cobalt sulphate prices remained stable.

This week, by material type, for LFP hydrometallurgy: taking LFP pole piece black mass as an example, the current price of LFP pole piece black mass is 6,150-6,650 yuan/mtu, with the price center up MoM from before the holiday. As time moved into the post-Chinese New Year period, both futures and spot prices of lithium carbonate continued to rise, and some upstream LFP recycling enterprises began to quote higher prices, with a certain volume of transactions; most downstream hydrometallurgy recycling enterprises are still observing, but overall sentiment has clearly shifted upward, and they indicated that there are plans for just-in-time procurement at the beginning of March, which is next week. For ternary and LCO, the nickel and cobalt payables of ternary pole piece black mass are around 78%-80%, and the lithium payables are around 77%-78%. Due to relatively small changes in nickel and cobalt prices, ternary enterprises have a strong wait-and-see attitude, but currently, some upstream recycling enterprises have started to quote high prices for sales, and market sentiment has slightly improved, with prices temporarily stable.

Data Source Statement: Except for publicly available information, all other data are processed by SMM based on publicly available information, market communication, and relying on SMM‘s internal database model. They are for reference only and do not constitute decision-making recommendations.

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