Skyrocketing / shortage / scrambling! Inventory of Top Ten keywords in Lithium Power Industry in 2021 (part I)

In 2021, driven by the global carbon neutralization strategy and electrification trend, the new energy industry chain has entered a period of acceleration.

At the market end, subversive changes have taken place in the new energy vehicle market, and established car companies have announced the strategic goal of electric transformation to meet and join the tide of the times. China, as the largest consumer, has begun to show phased results. whether it is new car types, or sales data, have doubled.

On the supply side, the lithium industry has also burst out, benefiting from the substantial growth in terminal demand. From upstream mineral resources, to battery raw materials and equipment, to battery companies, demand has surged across the board, resulting in a sharp rise in prices. In this, there are also people who are happy and sad, making a lot of money on the one hand and fighting wits for the supply of raw materials and batteries on the other.

The market gives rise to competition. While the products promote the continuous expansion of the market scale, the battery technology also ushered in a new breakthrough. With the optimization and progress of battery technology in many enterprises, solid-state batteries, sodium batteries and other new batteries have detonated the market one after another.

In just one year, the global new energy industry is colorful, with countless reasons to prove that the new energy industry is about to usher in a new explosive period. Today's content, Vike Lithium Power also takes the opportunity of the end of the year to review the great changes in the lithium electricity industry in the past year by taking an inventory of the top ten key words of the lithium electricity industry in 2021.

Expand production and anchor 100 GWh

According to the data, global sales of new energy passenger vehicles are expected to reach 18 million by 2025, and the demand for power batteries will exceed that of 1TWh. In other words, the power battery market will achieve a compound annual growth rate of 35 per cent from 2021 to 2025.

Facing the era of TWh, the pace of production expansion of power battery enterprises is faster and larger, and the scale is basically anchored by 100 GWH.

According to incomplete statistics, since the beginning of this year, 25 enterprises, including Ningde Times, BYD, China Chuangxin Airlines, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, Honeycomb Energy, Yiwei Lithium Energy, Vision Power, Funeng Technology, Xin Wanda, Jie Wei Power, Ruipu Energy, and Duofuo, have added a total of planned production capacity to 1894GWh.

From January to November this year, the top 10 domestic power battery installed enterprises are: Ningde era, BYD, China New Airlines, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, LG New Energy, Yiwei Lithium Energy, Tafel, Honeycomb Energy, Funeng Technology, Xinwanda.

Specifically, the Ningde era at the top of the list has now landed 10 production bases around the world, including Ningde in Fujian, Xiamen in Fujian, Liyang in Jiangsu, Xining in Qinghai, Yibin in Sichuan, Zhaoqing in Guangdong, Lingang in Shanghai, Yichun in Jiangxi, Gui'an in Guizhou and Tulingen in Germany. By 2025, Ningde's planned production capacity is expected to exceed 670GWh.

BYD has laid out production bases in Qinghai Xining, Huizhou, Shenzhen Pingshan, Chongqing Bishan, Xi'an, Changsha Ningxiang, Guizhou Guiyang, Anhui Bengbu, Jilin Changchun, Anhui Wuwei, Shandong Jinan, Anhui Chuzhou, Yancheng Sheyang, Jiangxi Fuzhou, Zhejiang Shaoxing and so on. According to preliminary statistics, BYD's planned production capacity is expected to exceed 600GWh in 2025.

At present, Sinovel has signed a contract to achieve a landing capacity of 265GWH, and has laid out seven major production bases in Luoyang, Changzhou, Xiamen, Chengdu (50GWh), Wuhan, Hefei and Heilongjiang.

The order is full on hand.

The strength and motivation of large-scale production expansion comes from the sharp increase in in-hand orders. Since the beginning of this year, the battery industry once set off a "battery shortage", so domestic and foreign car companies are sparing no effort to seize the power battery supply, battery enterprises also ushered in a peak period of production expansion.

According to incomplete statistics, 14 companies, including Ningde Times, Xinwanda, Yiwei Lithium Energy, Funeng Technology, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, Honeycomb Energy and Ruipu Energy, received a total of 45 power battery orders in 2021. Of these, more than 20 orders have been delegated by foreign car companies, indicating that Chinese battery companies are speeding up the pace of going out to sea and are increasingly becoming the backbone of the global new energy vehicle industry.

It should be noted that, in addition to the head enterprise capacity is locked by a large single, long single, this year can also be called a year of the rise of second-line power battery companies, in-hand orders continue to grow, and quite a back neck. For example, Xinwanda has successively obtained 7 fixed-point projects, Funeng has obtained 8 fixed-point / orders, and so on.

Skyrocketing materials

The expansion of battery production can not bypass the raw materials. You must have felt that the prices of various raw materials in the lithium power industry chain have risen sharply this year, ranging from upstream nickel / cobalt / lithium resources to key raw materials such as lithium hydroxide, lithium carbonate, lithium hexafluorophosphate, PVDF, and VC, and even some of them have increased several times since the beginning of the year.

Then guess which raw material will have the biggest increase this year. Presumably, lithium iron phosphate, lithium hydroxide, lithium hexafluorophosphate and other names have emerged in everyone's mind.

Lithium iron phosphate rose 161 per cent from the beginning of the year to the end of the year, while battery-grade lithium hydroxide rose 306 per cent, according to SMM.

However, the biggest cumulative increase was lithium carbonate. Since the beginning of the year, the cumulative increase of industrial carbon and electric carbon has been as high as 369% and 372% respectively!

Yesterday (December 29), the state media also conducted another special report on lithium carbonate. According to state media, the price of battery-grade lithium carbonate has staged a "triple jump" within a year, with the average price rising from 50, 000 yuan per ton at the beginning of the year to 274000 yuan per ton today. In December, from more than 200000 yuan / ton at the beginning of the month to more than 270000 yuan / ton at present, the quotation has been close to 300000 yuan / ton, an increase of more than 30% in the month, and a year-on-year increase of more than 400%. The price has set a new all-time high.

It is reported that lithium carbonate industry personnel revealed that as the growth of new projects downstream exceeds expectations, the current growth rate of industry supply is far from being able to meet market demand. The mismatch between supply and demand is also one of the main reasons for the take-off of lithium carbonate prices.

It is worth mentioning that due to the fierce rise of lithium carbonate this year, lithium salt also successfully occupies a place in this year's raw material "drama" with its ultra-high topic and growth rate. For example, Salt Lake shares returned grandly by virtue of the concept of "Lithium extraction from Salt Lake".

Out of stock! Out of stock!

The sharp increase in the price of raw materials, in addition to the strong terminal demand, shortage is also an important reason. Moreover, there is a shortage of more than one raw material this year.

In addition, this year, there is not only a shortage of raw materials, but also a "battery shortage". There are two specific cases. One is that he Xiaopeng, the CEO of Xiaopeng car, personally crouched in the Ningde era for a week in order to get the battery smoothly from the Ningde era. (another theory is that, according to China Business report, he Xiaopeng said in an interview that the report was not true, and he also saw it on the news. )

In addition, Tesla CEO Musk has repeatedly expressed concern about the shortage of battery supply, saying bluntly that Tesla will buy as much as the supplier gives.

According to SNE Research, a global emerging energy market research agency, by 2023, the global demand for power batteries for electric vehicles will reach 406 gigawatt-hour (GWH), while the supply of power batteries is expected to be 335 gigawatt-hour (GWH), shortfall of about 18%. By 2025, the gap will widen to about 40%!

The shortage of high-quality production capacity is also the main driving force for signing power battery enterprises to expand production wantonly, and the production capacity is frequently signed by large and long orders.

The lithium mine of "you fight for me"

There is no doubt that the "lithium mine dispute" is also one of the hot topics in the lithium industry this year.

According to incomplete statistics, this year, more than 20 enterprises at home and abroad have participated in the competition for lithium mines, involving more than 20 projects and involving more than 50 billion yuan. These include battery companies and lithium mining companies, such as Ningde Times, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, Ganfeng Lithium Industry, Tianhua Super Clean, Tibet Everest, Yiwei Lithium Energy, Tibetan Mining, Salt Lake shares, etc., as well as Zijin Mining, Saddle heavy shares, Jinyuan shares and so on.

Among them, the Millennia "cut-off Hu" dispute between Ningde era and Ganfeng Lithium Power has attracted the most attention. The end result is that Ningde era's bid failed, and Millennia was eventually won by Lithium Americas, an American lithium company, and Ganfeng Lithium is the largest shareholder of Lithium Americas.

From the demand side, the production expansion plan on the lithium battery side and the tight supply and rising prices of raw materials have intensified the urgent mentality of lithium enterprises to control upstream resources.

In addition, due to the limitations of resources and technology, the growth rate of lithium production is relatively slow. And due to the low lithium price in the past two years and the scarcity of capital expenditure on the resource side, there is a shortage of resource-side production projects from 2021 to 2022. Under the background of the outbreak of demand for new energy vehicles, the contradiction between supply and demand of lithium resources is acute.

According to the overall situation of the current lithium mining industry, the "Lithium Triangle" in South America and Western Australia mines are occupied by American Yabao and domestic Tianqi Lithium Industry and Ganfeng Lithium Industry; domestic Qinghai Salt Lake and West Sichuan Lithium Mine also gather a large number of local state-owned enterprises, central enterprises and listed companies, the overall interest pattern is relatively fixed.

(to be continued) See you in the next article! )