The battle for lithium resources is becoming more and more fierce! Yahua Group announced new progress in lithium concentrate procurement. At one point, it rose by more than 6% in intraday trading today.

SMM February 17: yesterday night, Ya Hua Group announced that it had signed an off-take agreement on lithium concentrate with Lithium Development, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Core, Australia, at the end of March 2019. According to the previous agreement, Yahhua International will buy at least 300000 dry tons of lithium oxide concentrate from the development of the lithium industry, and will buy at least 75000 dry tons of lithium oxide concentrate each year (fluctuating up and down by no more than 10 per cent) after the lithium deposit is put into production.

At present, Australia's Core has started mine construction as planned and is expected to provide lithium concentrate to the company in the fourth quarter of this year as agreed. And on February 16th, Ya Hua International also signed a supplementary agreement of the off-take Agreement with Lithium Development, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Core, Australia, which adjusted the reference price and maximum price of lithium concentrate in the original agreement, and renewed the relevant terms and conditions for delivery of products at FOB prices. In the future, if Core Australia intends to expand the production of the project and has additional products to be sold to Ya Hua International, the two sides will further discuss the sale and purchase agreement for additional products.

Ya Hua Group said that the adjustment of the highest price gives some of its lithium concentrates a greater cost advantage, and with the successive output of Core lithium concentrates, it will open up another stable raw material supply channel for the company. The company will seize the development opportunity of the industry, continue to distribute upstream lithium resources, and enhance the resource guarantee capacity of future lithium salt production expansion, so as to enhance the company's competitiveness in the lithium industry.

Stimulated by the news, Ya Hua Group opened higher rapidly today, rising more than 6% at one point in intraday trading.

And also in the active layout of lithium resources, there is a well-known electric car giant Tesla. Tesla signed a new lithium ore purchase order with Australian lithium miners on February 16, and will gradually purchase 100,000 metric tons of (DMT) lithium concentrate from Liontown Resources from 2024.

In addition, in 2022, many enterprises, including Ningde era, Zangge Mining, Ganfeng Lithium Industry and so on, have increased the layout of lithium mining, which is enough to prove the popularity of the lithium industry today.

And from the preliminary adoption of Chile's proposal on the nationalization of lithium mines and the re-mention of the lithium "OPEC" organization, it also shows that countries attach importance to lithium resources. Some people in the industry believe that this means that overseas acquisitions will not only be affected by previous geopolitical influences, but will also be affected by concerns about the future industrial development of various countries. Overseas lithium resources acquisition will become more difficult than before, and at the same time, it will also affect the rate of release of global medium-and short-term lithium resources production. The price of lithium salt is likely to remain high for at least two years.

According to the spot price of SMM, recently, the average spot price of domestic battery-grade lithium carbonate has risen all the way up. After jumping 10, 000 yuan for three consecutive trading days, the average price of lithium carbonate recently rose 8000 yuan to 430000 yuan / ton.

"Click to order to view the spot historical price of SMM new energy products.

SMM research shows that on the supply side, output of lithium carbonate enterprises has rebounded slightly at the end of maintenance in February, with a significant reduction in demand for the four major cathode materials in February, and the overall demand for lithium carbonate has dropped by about 6 per cent. Therefore, the current lithium carbonate market gap has narrowed slightly, but the gap is still there, resulting in the upstream lithium carbonate quotation is still in the upstream state. "View details

Guotai Junan believes that, from a comprehensive point of view of supply and demand, the persistence of high lithium prices is quite solid. Citic Securities previously said that production disruptions in Australia's lithium mine continued and production declined in the fourth quarter from the previous quarter. Considering the epidemic and labor shortages affecting concentrate supply, lithium mine prices are expected to exceed US $3000 per tonne in the first half of 2022.