SMM October 12: recently, the price of lithium materials led by battery-grade lithium carbonate continues to rise. According to SMM spot prices, a number of lithium materials have risen gratifying since September alone. Take battery-grade lithium carbonate as an example. As of October 12, the average spot price of battery-grade lithium carbonate was 184750 yuan / ton, up 44250 yuan / ton from Sept. 13, or 31.49% in just one month.
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Not only battery-grade lithium carbonate, SMM has also sorted out the following data on the average spot price of lithium-ion materials over the past month, as follows:
From the above picture, it is not difficult to see that battery-grade lithium carbonate has increased the most among a large number of lithium materials. According to previous research by SMM, there has been a 14% shortfall in domestic lithium carbonate since August, while the production expansion plans of some domestic lithium iron manufacturers in the second half of the year may be delayed due to the high cost of lithium prices and the shortage of iron phosphate, and the increase in demand will be less than expected, but the gas and electricity restrictions brought about by the fourth quarter may affect upstream production, so SMM predicts that the supply and demand structure will remain tight in the second half of the year. It means that the price of lithium carbonate will still be on the upside in the second half of the year.
It is worth mentioning that due to the continuous rise in raw material prices and power supply, the production cost of metal lithium has increased significantly. Ganfeng Lithium, a lithium giant with a total market capitalization of 220 billion, has been "forced" to adjust its prices. it is announced that the prices of metal lithium and butyl lithium products will be raised from October 10, among which the unit price of a full range of metal lithium products (industrial grade metal lithium, battery grade metal lithium, lithium financial lithium belt products) will be increased by 100000 yuan per ton. The unit price of butyl lithium products will be increased by 10%, and the price adjustment letter will be valid for one month.
In addition, cobalt, which has recently been reported by the state media because of skyrocketing prices, has also attracted much attention as an integral part of power batteries. According to the historical price of SMM, after falling to the lowest level in recent years in July 2019, the average price of electrolytic cobalt ushered in a continuous rise in July 2020. as of October 12, the average spot price of electrolytic cobalt has soared 158500 yuan / ton from the low in April 2020, an increase of 68.2%.
However, judging from the recent research, the continued rise in cobalt prices is mostly driven by the news of the overseas downstream Association for Metal Cobalt Purchasing, leading to growing bullish sentiment among traders. The increase in cobalt prices has driven up the raw material costs of cobalt intermediate products in domestic smelting enterprises, and SMM expects quotations for cobalt salts, electrolytic cobalt, cobalt tetroxide and other products to continue to rise. However, affected by the double control of energy, the start-up of downstream cathode material enterprises has a deep impact, so it is necessary to continue to pay attention to the situation of enterprise resumption of work and the change of purchasing demand. "View details
The International Energy Agency had previously predicted that demand for cobalt would increase about 20 times higher by 2040 than in 2020. The analysis of the Bank of America Global Research Center has also pointed out that the shortage of cobalt may become an important constraint to the production of power batteries in the future.
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