The skyrocketing price of raw materials for lithium electricity has led to competition from all sides to "buy ore".

Since last year, there have been a lot of troubles in the automotive industry. First there was the epidemic of "Black Swan" Sucker Punch. Many enterprises were almost overwhelmed, then there was a shortage of automotive chips, and many enterprises were facing the crisis of running out of food. To make matters worse, the rising prices of raw materials for lithium batteries began again, which made enterprises in the industry complain incessantly.

The price of lithium electricity raw materials is soaring.

The main raw materials of traditional lithium battery are cathode materials, negative electrode materials, diaphragms, electrolytes and other auxiliary materials. Among them, the cathode material is mainly composed of lithium carbonate and precursor materials, which accounts for the largest proportion in the cost of lithium battery.

It is understood that the price of lithium carbonate materials has risen sharply since November 2020. In 2021, based on the sharp rebound in the prosperity of the lithium electricity industry, the price of lithium carbonate materials has accelerated. As of May 24, the price of battery-grade lithium carbonate has more than doubled from last year's "trough" of 38000 yuan / ton to 90, 000 yuan / ton.

Prices are rising not only for lithium carbonate materials, but also for a variety of other lithium raw materials, including lithium hexafluorophosphate.

Data show that, due to excellent performance and low cost, lithium hexafluorophosphate is currently the mainstream material for lithium-ion batteries, and the cost of lithium hexafluorophosphate in the electrolyte accounts for about 40%. According to the quotation in mid-April this year, the price of domestic lithium hexafluorophosphate is about 180000 yuan / ton-220000 yuan / ton. This means that since September 2020, the price of lithium hexafluorophosphate has risen from 70, 000 yuan / ton to about 200000 yuan / ton, an increase of nearly 200%.

The reason why the price of lithium raw materials continues to rise is due to two reasons: one is the strong demand for power batteries of downstream new energy vehicles, and the other is the tight supply of lithium resources.

At present, the new energy vehicle market continues to grow at a high speed. Global sales of new energy vehicles are expected to reach 15.6 million by 2025, according to Xu Yingbo, chief technology industry analyst at Citic Securities. If this forecast becomes a reality, the resulting growth in demand for lithium materials will also be inestimable.

The installed capacity of power batteries in April before 2021 is significantly higher than that in the same period in 2020.

By contrast, the supply of lithium is tight. It is reported that at present, Australia, Chile, Argentina and other countries are the world's major lithium exporters, and the novel coronavirus epidemic has made the export of lithium raw materials in these countries continue to slow down, and there is a trend of further tightening, and the main sources of supply can not be guaranteed, making raw materials more scarce, prices naturally rise.

According to related forecasts, it is estimated that by 2030, the global demand for electric vehicles and lithium energy storage systems will exceed 2700 GWH, about ten times that of today, and the manufacturing of car batteries accounts for 3/4 of them. at present, the global lithium production capacity is only 70% of the 2030 demand, and there is still a huge supply gap to be filled.

From this point of view, the tight supply of lithium materials and the continuous growth of lithium prices not only can not be alleviated in a short period of time, but may continue to intensify in the follow-up. An insider from a domestic power battery company told Gaishi that new energy vehicles continue to grow, the supply and demand of core materials for lithium-ion batteries are tense, and in the short term, the prices of mainstream lithium materials will rise. The rise in raw material prices is likely to continue for some time and is unlikely to come down in a short period of time.

The battle for lithium ore is heating up rapidly.

There is an imbalance between supply and demand, prices are skyrocketing, and the battle for lithium resources is heating up rapidly, of which lithium companies are the biggest.

In the first quarter of this year, the performance of lithium industry leaders such as Yiwei Lithium Energy and Ganfeng Lithium Industry doubled. According to the data, the net profit of Ganfeng Lithium Industry in the first quarter was about 476 million yuan, an increase of 6046.30% over the same period last year. The reason why the net profit of Ganfeng lithium industry has been able to achieve such a substantial growth is mainly due to the great-leap-forward rise in the prices of lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide.

Thus it can be seen that at a time when the supply of lithium materials is tight, the profits of the industrial chain are moving upstream. It is believed that under the background that the power battery is about to enter the TWh era, the lithium industry companies will benefit the most. Lithium companies will not miss such an opportunity. According to Geshi Automotive, the head lithium industry enterprises are speeding up the control of upstream lithium ore resources through underwriting, acquisition and other forms.

This past May, Ganfeng Lithium Industry announced that it would offer to acquire all the issued shares of Bacanora (except Shanghai Ganfeng) for no more than 190 million pounds (1.706 billion yuan). The main assets are the Sonora lithium clay project in Mexico, and Shanghai Ganfeng will hold a 100% stake in Bacanora after the deal is completed.

It is reported that this is the first time that Ganfeng Lithium Industry has taken full control of overseas lithium mining assets since its establishment. So far, Ganfeng Lithium Industry has completed the global distribution of resources, and holds a number of high-quality mineral sources in Australia, Argentina, Mexico, Ireland, Qinghai and Jiangxi, China.

Lithium industry leaders continue to increase upstream, downstream power battery manufacturers and car companies have not been idle.

Whether it is to prevent being "choked" by raw materials, or to prevent the rising price of lithium from hitting the new energy vehicle market, car companies can no longer focus on the production of complete vehicle products as before, but also include the layout of raw materials in the planning. and because lithium resources are non-renewable resources, the sooner they start, the more they will be able to take the initiative in this battle.

Tesla extends his supply chain to the upstream raw materials, targeting lithium mines. It is reported that Tesla is now in negotiations with Chile's largest lithium mine producer, and it is possible to set up a local factory in the future to produce lithium raw materials for batteries. In September last year, Tesla won the right to exploit a lithium mine in Nevada after abandoning plans to buy a company in Nevada, according to people familiar with the matter.

Not only Tesla, perhaps because the rising cost of raw materials has been expected, Great Wall Motor has also increased the layout of mineral resources a long time ago.

As early as 2017, Great Wall announced that Yixin Development Co., Ltd., an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of the company, planned to acquire a stake of no more than 3.5 per cent of Pilbara Minerals with self-raised funds of 146 million yuan and obtain the right to underwrite some of the products of the Pilgangoora lithium mine project. The underwriting right means that Great Wall will underwrite 75000 tons / year of spodumene concentrate produced by the Pilgangoora lithium project at the agreed price. If Great Wall Motor provides 50% of the construction funds for the second phase of the project, the underwriting rights and interests of spodumene concentrate can be increased to 150000 tons / year, and supply is expected to begin in the first half of 2020.

Also extending their hands to lithium mines are power battery manufacturers. Since 2018, Ningde Times has subscribed for shares in North American lithium industry and Australian lithium mining companies respectively, and has also established a joint venture with German Nano, a leading company in lithium iron phosphate cathode materials. In 2020, Ningde Times participated in the capital increase of lithium iron phosphate material enterprises such as Hunan Yuneng and Jiangxi sublimation.

It is also understood that Guoxuan Tech has successively laid out upstream raw materials such as positive electrode, negative electrode, copper foil, diaphragm, electrolyte and battery recycling, forming a relatively complete four major materials and battery recycling ecosystem, and gradually establish the vertical layout of the whole industry chain of "material end-battery end-product end".

It can be predicted that in the future, more and more enterprises will realize the importance and urgency of upstream raw material protection. Mineral resources including lithium and key upstream raw material resources are becoming popular.

It's not just "buying a mine".

As mentioned earlier, lithium is a non-renewable resource, which means that it is not enough for both car companies and power battery manufacturers to "buy mines". Fortunately, car companies and power battery manufacturers do not bet all their hopes on the move of "buying mines", but are making preparations in many ways.

Take Ningde era as an example, Zeng Yuqun, chairman of Ningde era, revealed at the recent shareholders' meeting that the sodium ion battery will be released around July this year. This move is regarded by the industry as an important measure in the Ningde era to deal with the scarcity of lithium resources and the resulting high prices of lithium raw materials.

It is reported that in January this year, Academician Chen Liquan, as a doctoral supervisor of Zeng Yuqun, said at the Seventh China Electric vehicle Association Forum: "Lithium-ion batteries are not enough to store electric energy all over the world, so we must consider new batteries. Sodium-ion batteries are the first choice. The content of lithium in the world is quite small, only 0.0065%, the content of sodium is 2.75%, it should be said that the content of sodium is quite high. "

Moreover, relevant data show that 70% of China's lithium resources need to be imported, while sodium is rich in reserves. Chaerhan Salt Lake is the largest salt lake in China. According to statistics, the total reserves of various salt resources in the salt lake are more than 60 billion tons. The reserves of sodium chloride and lithium chloride in the lake are 42.62 billion tons and 8.25 million tons respectively. Therefore, from the perspective of energy security, the introduction of supporting sodium batteries can also avoid getting stuck by other countries.

It should be pointed out that the sodium ion battery is still in the early stage of industrialization. At present, the energy density of lithium iron phosphate battery can reach 200 Whpm kg, while the energy density of sodium ion battery is 100-150 Whp kg, which still has a large gap compared with lithium battery, and has a lower matching degree with the requirements of vehicle battery mileage, so there is no possibility to replace the mainstream route of lithium battery for the time being.

Even so, the Ningde era does bring more possibilities to ease the shortage of lithium resources through "open source". However, in addition to "open source", there is still a need to "cut expenditure". Specifically, there are two main ideas for "throttling", one is to promote the recycling of lithium batteries, and the other is to technically improve the utilization of lithium.

Generally speaking, the service life of lithium-ion power battery is about 5-7 years. It is reported that by 2025, the retirement of lithium-ion batteries will reach 640000 tons, of which power batteries will account for more than half. According to industry standards, the decommissioning time limit can be reached when the power battery capacity declines to about 80%. Although it is no longer suitable for cars, there is still a lot of room for utilization in other aspects, which is of great significance to improve the utilization rate of lithium batteries. Even if the waste power battery can not be used in the end, it can still excavate its residual value in the process of regeneration and realize the effective recycling of resources.

According to Gaishi Automotive, at present, downstream enterprises such as Ningde era, BYD, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, as well as many ternary precursor enterprises such as Grimme and Bang Pu cycle have a layout in the field of power battery recycling.

When it comes to the improvement of lithium utilization, it is necessary to talk about solid-state batteries. The data show that the built-in electrolyte of traditional lithium battery exists in liquid form. at present, ternary lithium battery and lithium iron phosphate battery commonly used in the industry have their own shortcomings in battery durability and energy density. the former will lead to the rapid growth of the number of scrapped batteries, while the latter will consume more lithium cells. Solid-state batteries solve the shortcomings of the above two kinds of batteries very well.

The solid-state battery subverts the battery structure of the lithium battery. unlike the traditional liquid electrolyte wrapping the cell, there is no liquid or gas in the solid-state battery, and all materials exist in the solid state. The change in electrolyte means that qualitative changes can be achieved in terms of energy density and durability. According to the current R & D expectations, the cycle life of solid-state batteries is as high as 15000-20000 times, which is far ten times higher than the current lithium iron phosphate batteries with good durability. The energy density is estimated to be up to 900 Whshock kg, which is three times higher than the theoretical energy density of ternary lithium batteries.

At present, solid-state batteries are accelerating their commercialization process. Not long ago, Ningde Times also said in an institutional survey that the company has been developing solid-state batteries for many years and is in the first echelon and can make solid-state battery samples. In January, Ningde Times unveiled two patents related to solid-state batteries, which can improve the energy density and cycle performance of all-solid-state batteries by improving the conductivity of solid-state electrolytes.

At the beginning of this year, Xilai announced the launch of a 150kWh solid-state battery with an energy density of 360Wh/kg. The Xilai ET7 (configuration | inquiry) sedan with the battery pack will exceed the 1000km in battery life. The product will be available in the fourth quarter of 2022. In addition, BMW Group proposed that its solid-state battery prototype will be launched in 2025, and Volkswagen is also actively deploying solid-state batteries.

All in all, the skyrocketing price of lithium raw materials reflects the shortage of lithium resources. in order to alleviate this problem, in addition to "buying mines", companies in the industry are looking for more possibilities.