Salt lake lithium extraction and then on the market tuyere! Sanda film has tens of millions of yuan of revenue industry localization inflection point?

Since July, the salt lake lithium extraction plate has once again become a hot spot in the market. Jiuwu Hi-Tech closed by 20% in two trading days, while Sanda Film, Koda Manufacturing, Tibet Mining and other targets rose more than 20% from July 1 to 9.

The reporter learned from informed sources that the lithium extraction business of Sanda Film Salt Lake has a revenue of 10 million yuan, and the company's industrial separation business, spare parts and other businesses may exceed expectations in the upward cycle of lithium prices.

The national strategic orientation, the contradiction between market supply and demand and technological progress provide good opportunities for the development of lithium extraction from salt lakes. Brokerage analysts said bluntly that 2021 will be the inflection point for lithium extraction from salt lakes in China.

The main customer of the business is Qinghai Guoan.

Sanda membrane has the layout of the whole industry chain of "membrane material-membrane module-membrane equipment-membrane software-membrane application". Its main business includes two parts: the application of membrane technology and the investment and operation of water affairs. Data show that the proportion of revenue from membrane technology application business has been maintained at about 60% in the past five years. There is a certain volatility in the company's gross profit margin. The gross profit margin of the membrane technology application business in 2020 was 30.46%, the lowest in nearly five years and nearly 12 percentage points lower than the same period in 2019.

The application of membrane technology can be divided into membrane fa water treatment equipment, industrial liquid separation membrane equipment (hereinafter referred to as "industrial separation"), environmental engineering, spare parts and others. At the end of 2020, the total revenue of the above business accounted for 27%, 12.19%, 3.23% and 16.5%, respectively. Among them, the membrane fa water treatment equipment and industrial separation changed greatly compared with the same period last year, with the former increasing 1.52 times year-on-year, while the industrial separation business decreased by 48.5% compared with the same period last year.

In response to the exchange inquiry, Sanda Film said that the industrial separation business is mainly affected by downstream customer capacity expansion and equipment renovation demand and other factors have certain fluctuations. Order data show that the total amount, quantity and average amount of recognized income of large orders for Sanda membrane industrial material and liquid separation membrane equipment in 2020 have decreased compared with 2019, while the total amount and quantity of small and medium-sized orders have increased.

However, the "decline" of industrial separation business in 2020 seems likely to break out again in 2021. According to data disclosed by Sanda Film, the total amount of new orders from January to April 2021 was 80.139 million yuan, an increase of 541.26% over the same period last year. In terms of order size, there are 13 orders with a contract value of more than 10 million as of April 30, 2021, with a total amount of 187 million yuan.

People familiar with the matter told reporters that Sanda membrane from the salt lake lithium extraction business, which belongs to the field of industrial separation, has earned 10 million yuan, and the business may usher in a better-than-expected performance in the upward cycle of lithium prices.

"in the past, the company's major customers in the industrial separation business were mainly concentrated in the pharmaceutical and food sectors, but demand declined after the high production expansion in the previous two years. Since last year, lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide have continued to rise, driving the company's salt lake lithium extraction business orders to increase greatly compared with the same period last year. " An industry investor told reporters that the main customer of Sanda Film Salt Lake lithium extraction business is Qinghai CITIC Guoan Lithium Industry (hereinafter referred to as "Qinghai Guoan"). Membrane fa technology has been introduced into Qinghai Guoan new production line, and Sanda membrane is its main supplier.

Data show that Qinghai Guoan, founded on May 26, 2017, is the wholly owned grandson of CITIC Guoan Group. The company is engaged in the R & D and production of salt lake resources in Xitaijinaer Salt Lake, Qaidam Basin, with an existing production capacity of 10,000 tons and a planned expansion of 20,000 tons.

The reporter called people related to Sanda Film to learn about the revenue, orders and customers of lithium extraction from Salt Lake, but the company politely declined to interview on the grounds that it was limited by laws and regulations such as listing rules.

According to the introduction of Sanda membrane, the technology of extracting lithium in salt lake includes raw brine or old brine continuous adsorption process and equipment, brine salt separation and lithium concentration technology and so on. The company's ceramic membrane, ultrafiltration membrane, nanofiltration membrane and reverse osmosis membrane can be used to extract lithium from salt lake. Among them, ceramic membrane and ultrafiltration membrane are mainly used for pretreatment, nanofiltration membrane is to separate salt to improve the purity of lithium, and reverse osmosis is to concentrate lithium.

In addition, Sanda Film has said that if customers purchase equipment related to the application of membrane technology from the company, the subsequent purchase of spare parts of the equipment is more likely. If Sanda membrane industry separation business develops faster than expected, its spare parts and other businesses may usher in a recovery. Data show that Sanda film spare parts and others fell 3.1% in 2020 compared with the same period last year, the first negative growth in nearly five years.

Salt lake lithium extraction investment ushered in the tuyere?

From a macro point of view, the national strategic orientation and the contradiction between supply and demand in the market promote the extraction of lithium from salt lake by industrial capital, and related concept stocks have been launched in advance.

In mid-May 2021, the Plan and Action Plan for the Construction of a World-class Salt Lake Industrial Base was reviewed and approved by experts, which is expected to accelerate the development of lithium extraction industry from salt lakes in Qinghai.

Behind the introduction of the plan, there is a "lithium raw material crisis" in China. According to USGS data in 2020, the world's lithium reserves are mainly concentrated in Chile, Australia and Argentina, which together account for about 75% of the world's lithium reserves. China is the world's largest and fastest-growing consumer of lithium, accounting for 54% of global lithium consumption in 2019. It is estimated that more than 60% of lithium raw materials produced in China need to be imported, with a high degree of external dependence.

From the perspective of resource form, nearly 80% of China's lithium resources exist in salt lakes in the form of salt lake brine, and are mainly distributed in the northwest, with Qinghai, Tibet and Sichuan accounting for 86% of the total resources. Due to the uncertainty of lithium ore import caused by the friction among big countries, it is very urgent to increase the extraction of lithium from salt lakes and the self-control of key resources.

From the perspective of market supply and demand, the strong demand for downstream applications of lithium batteries such as new energy vehicles and consumer batteries, as well as supply-side bottlenecks such as the restructuring of Australia Mine, have pushed the price of lithium carbonate into an upward cycle from the fourth quarter of 2021, especially in the first half of 2020. According to data from a reporter from Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily, as of July 2, 2021, the domestic price of battery-grade lithium carbonate was 85500 yuan / ton, up 66% from the beginning of the year. Market participants predict that the price of lithium salt will remain at 8-100000 yuan / ton in 2021.

"in the past, the technology of extracting lithium from salt lakes in China was not mature and the initial investment was relatively large, and some manufacturers invested cautiously taking into account the factors of price cycle. Now affected by the high price of lithium carbonate, the broad market space for the application of new energy and the decline in the cost side brought about by technological progress, salt lake lithium extraction investment is at a good time point. " A non-ferrous analyst at a brokerage told reporters that 2021 will be the inflection point for lithium extraction from China's salt lake.

It is reported that the cost of extracting lithium from salt lakes in China is as high as 60,000 yuan / ton, which is more than that of some mines. After 2015, the technology of extracting lithium from salt lake has gradually matured, and the cost has been gradually reduced to 35000 yuan / ton, and individual enterprises have reduced the cost of lithium extraction to 20, 000 / ton.

In terms of technical route, with the gradual improvement of the performance of adsorbents and nanofiltration membranes, relevant manufacturers gradually distribute technologies such as high output efficiency, green ion exchange adsorption, membrane fa and solvent extraction, thus driving the performance release of related industrial chain companies. For example, Qinghai Guoan original production line is based on calcination process, with high equipment investment cost, large energy consumption and serious environmental pollution. Membrane fa, is introduced into the new production expansion line and Sanda membrane is selected as one of the suppliers.

In the A-share market, the relevant concepts have been heard to move first. Data from Star Mine show that Zangge Holdings, Jiuwu Hi-Tech, Koda Manufacturing, Tibetan Mining and Lanxiao Technology have increased by 204.62%, 156.15%, 152.79%, 148.84% and 107.5% respectively from the beginning of 2021 to July 9.

However, it should be noted that if the concentrated influx of capital and the release of lithium ore supply exceeds expectations, the change in the relationship between supply and demand will also lead to the downward price of lithium carbonate, which will directly affect the economic benefits of production enterprises. For example, Lanke lithium industry has suffered a loss due to a sharp drop in the sales price of lithium carbonate.