What have you gained from the layout of these enterprises for the sake of "lithium salt freedom"?

With the high demeanor of the power battery market in recent years, the industry has entered a stage of rapid growth, and the roles of enterprises in different links of the industrial chain are also changing with the market demand. For example, a number of lithium salt enterprises, under the premise of skyrocketing customer demand for downstream power batteries, gradually extend their own power points in the lithium industry chain, and even participate in the international layout and competition.

Recently, many lithium salt enterprises have gathered together to report the good news, benefiting from the strong demand downstream, the results of the early layout of enterprises in the upstream gradually appear. This paper will explore the changes in the layout of this kind of lithium salt head enterprises and their impact on the development of power battery industry.

Driven by the strong demand for power batteries, upstream lithium salt enterprises frequently spread good news. Among them, on January 17, Tianqi Lithium Industry issued a performance forecast for 2021, which is expected to return to its mother with a net profit of 1.8 billion yuan to 2.4 billion yuan, compared with a loss of 1.83 billion yuan last year, and to turn a loss into a profit in 2021.

On January 25, Shengxin LiNeng disclosed its annual performance forecast for 2021, with an estimated net profit of 830 million yuan to 920 million yuan, an increase of 2954.3% and 3,285.5% over the same period last year. The pre-increase is more than 29 times, the best performance since the company went public.

On February 22nd, KuaiBao showed that the total operating income exceeded 5.23 billion yuan, an increase of nearly 61.0 percent over the same period last year, and the attributable net profit exceeded 920 million yuan, an increase of 185.5 percent over the same period last year.

On March 14, Ganfeng Lithium Industry released its 2021 results, KuaiBao, with operating income exceeding 11.16 billion yuan in 2021, an increase of nearly 102.1 percent over the same period last year, and net profit of nearly 5.18 billion yuan, an increase of about 405.0 percent over the same period last year.

It is not difficult to find that after passing through the trough of lithium product prices in 2020, several leading lithium salt companies have performed well in revenue and net profit in 2021. Whether it is a turnaround from loss to profit or a pre-increase of net profit by more than 29 times, the substantial increase in corporate performance is actually the result of multiple factors, such as demand growth, lithium appreciation, self-expansion, upstream locking and other factors.

In terms of downstream demand, Ganfeng Lithium Industry said that with the rapid development of new energy vehicles and energy storage industry, the strong growth of downstream customer demand for lithium products has significantly increased the company's production and sales of lithium products, which is an important reason for the year-on-year increase in performance in 2021.

Tianqi lithium industry also pointed out that the main reasons for the performance improvement include: power battery manufacturers accelerate capacity expansion, downstream cathode material orders pick up and so on.

It is worth noting that in order to prepare for the large-scale production expansion in the TWh era, power battery enterprises need to maintain long-term cooperation with lithium salt enterprises. In this context, battery head enterprises have opened the "lock order" mode.

Public data show that the four lithium salt enterprises have abundant orders at home and abroad, and their customers mainly include lithium battery positive and negative electrode material manufacturers, power battery enterprises and so on. In particular, the capacity of new projects in power battery enterprises has been gradually released, which has provided a long-term support for the performance of lithium salt enterprises.

Since 2019, Ganfeng Lithium Industry has successively signed supply contracts with LG New Energy, Tesla, BMW, Volkswagen, Umico and other industry leaders. According to the contract, Ganfeng Lithium will supply 92600 tons of lithium salt products to LG New Energy from 2019 to 2025; in April 2019, Ganfeng Lithium and Volkswagen agreed to supply lithium chemical products for the next 10 years; from 2020 to 2024, Ganfeng Lithium will supply lithium chemical products to suppliers of batteries or cathode materials designated by BMW; from 2022 to 2024, Ganfeng Lithium will supply battery-grade lithium hydroxide products to Tesla. During the period from 2022 to 2026 (which can be extended by one year), Ganfeng Lithium Industry will supply battery-grade lithium carbonate and battery-grade lithium hydroxide monohydrate to Umicor.

The customers of Tianqi lithium industry are mainly power battery enterprises and cathode material enterprises, and their customers have entered the supply chain of new energy automobile manufacturers such as BYD, Tesla, BMW and so on. It is understood that Tianqi Lithium Industry West Australia Quinana Project Phase I Lithium hydroxide Project signed a long order supply agreement for customers including SKI, Ecopro, LG Chemistry and Northvolt.

Ya'an Lithium, a subsidiary of Ya Chemical Group, will provide Tesla with battery-grade lithium hydroxide of US $630 million-US $880 million between 2021 and 2025. At present, its main customers include Umicor, Zhenhua New Materials, Beitre, BYD, Xiamen Tungsten Industry and other well-known domestic and foreign cathode material manufacturers and lithium battery enterprises, and have established some cooperative relations with foreign customers such as Japan, South Korea, Europe and the United States.

From 2019 to 2020, Shengxin Lithium Energy successively announced that it signed lithium salt supply agreements with downstream enterprises such as Bamo Technology, Ningde Times and LG; in 2021, the company also signed long-term supply agreements with Ningde Times, Xiamen Tungsten Industry, Cunninghamia lanceolata Energy, LG, Betteri, German Nano, Dangsheng Technology, Rongbai Technology and other enterprises.

The surge in downstream orders has led to a capacity gap in the lithium salt industry as a whole, and the price of lithium salt has risen rapidly. Take battery-grade lithium carbonate as an example, it rose from about 50, 000 yuan / ton at the beginning of 2021 to nearly 280000 yuan / ton at the end of the year, and now it has broken through the 500000 yuan / ton mark, with outstanding economic value. Driven by the growth in demand and the dividend of the lithium salt market, lithium salt companies with sufficient long orders have also begun a round of capacity expansion competition.

In terms of capacity expansion, Ganfeng Lithium Industry has an annual production capacity of 43000 tons of battery-grade lithium carbonate, 81000 tons of battery-grade lithium hydroxide and 2000 tons of metal lithium. It is planned that the supply capacity of lithium products with a total annual production capacity of not less than 200000 tons / year LCE will be formed on or before 2025.

Tianqi lithium has established five major production bases at home and abroad, and now has an annual production capacity of 44800 tons of lithium salt. The first phase of lithium hydroxide in Quinana, Australia has an annual production capacity of 24000 tons and has been put into trial operation. In the future, with the annual production capacity of 24000 tons of lithium hydroxide in the second phase of Quinana and the gradual commissioning of the 20, 000 tons of lithium carbonate project in Sichuan Suining, the supply capacity of lithium salt will be further enhanced.

On March 3, Shengxin Lithium Energy said on the investor interactive platform that the Suining Shengxin lithium salt project with an annual production capacity of 30,000 tons has been completed and put into production, and the company's lithium salt production capacity has reached 70,000 tons per year.

According to public data, the comprehensive annual production capacity of lithium salt of Yahua Group has reached 43000 tons. In addition, Ya'an Lithium Industry Phase II 50, 000 tons / year battery-grade lithium hydroxide, 11000 tons / year lithium chloride production capacity and its products are under construction and are expected to be partially put into production by the end of this year. By 2025, the comprehensive production capacity of lithium salt products will reach more than 100000 tons per year.

Obviously, the expansion trend of power battery enterprises has been transmitted to the upstream, and the overall supply scale of lithium salt is gradually increasing. The biggest problem for lithium salt enterprises to expand production is the serious shortage of mineral supply. As a result, lithium salt enterprises increase the distribution of lithium resources in the form of underwriting, equity participation, acquisition and other forms to ensure the stability of their own lithium ore supply.

In terms of upstream locking, at present, in a variety of lithium extraction technology routes, smelting lithium salt products from lithium ore, the process is more mature. As the main producing area of lithium mines in the world, most of the lithium concentrates produced by Western Australian mines are underwritten to their shareholders, other lithium salt enterprises and vehicle factories, among which the domestic industry leaders are among them. For example, the Greenbushes mine is underwritten to its shareholders Tianqi Lithium Industry and Yabao; the Mt.Marion Mine is fully underwritten to its shareholder Ganfeng Lithium Industry, which has underwritten about 192000 tons of lithium concentrate in 2020; of the 180000 tons of lithium concentrate produced by Mt.Cattlin Mine, 60, 000 tons are underwritten to Shengxin Lithium Industry and 120000 tons to Yabao; and 330000 tons of Pilgangoora Lithium concentrate is underwritten to Ganfeng Lithium Industry, Runghui Lithium Industry, Tianyi Lithium Industry and Great Wall Automobile respectively.

From the perspective of enterprises, Ganfeng Lithium has laid out a number of lithium resource projects in Australia, Argentina, Mexico, Ireland, Africa, Qinghai, Jiangxi and other places, forming a diversified raw material supply system. The main lithium resource currently used is the Mt.Marion Mine Project in Australia.

Tianqi lithium industry "lock up" earlier, in 2013, the acquisition of its upstream supplier Tylinson 51% stake, the layout is Greenbushes spodumene mine. In 2018, the acquisition of a 23.77% stake in the global lithium resources giant Chilean Chemical Mining Company (SQM), together with its previous shareholding, made it the second largest shareholder with a cumulative stake of 25.86%. At present, Tianqi Lithium has carried out the layout of lithium resources projects in China, Australia and Chile.

On February 22, Sheng Xin LiNeng said that it had signed an off-take agreement with overseas lithium resources companies such as Yinhe Lithium Industry to price lithium concentrates on a quarterly basis through the Changsha Association. In terms of its own lithium mine, it has a number of mining rights and exploration rights in Sichuan Province. In addition, through the acquisition of a 51 per cent stake in Max Mind, it also has mining licenses for a total of 40 rare metal blocks in the Sabixing lithium-tantalum project in Zimbabwe.

By the second half of this year, a number of shares in the lithium mine of Ya Hua Group will also "provide ammunition" for it. Take a stake in Sichuan Lijiagou, which is equivalent to 510000 tons of lithium oxide reserves, and is expected to be partially put into production in the second half of this year. In addition, Ya Hua Group, which has a stake in Australia's Core, has signed an underwriting agreement for 75000 tons of lithium concentrate, and it is expected that there will be a supply of lithium concentrate in the fourth quarter of this year.

With the promotion of the mineral source project of lithium salt enterprises, the supply of lithium salt products to battery enterprises will also be gradually increased. In order to solve the problem of lithium salt raw material supply of "sticking neck", not only lithium salt enterprises are actively "locking up", but also power battery enterprises such as Ningde Times, Yiwei Lithium Energy, BYD, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, Xin Wanda and other power battery enterprises are actively adding to the layout and production capacity construction of lithium mine projects, increasing the development and utilization of mineral resources by means of investment, capital increase, acquisition and technical cooperation, so as to increase the supply of lithium salt products.

In 2019, Ningde era established Tianyi Lithium Industry as a joint venture with Tianhua Chaojing, and participated in the underwriting model of the above-mentioned Pilgangoora mine.

According to related transactions, Tianhua ultra-clean purchased 800 million yuan of lithium concentrate and lithium carbonate from Ningde era in 2021, sold 294 million yuan of lithium hydroxide to Ningde time subsidiaries, and sold 161 million yuan of lithium carbonate to Ningde Times shareholding Company.

Through the integrated layout, the power battery enterprises have realized the partial self-sufficiency from indirectly participating in the underwriting of lithium mineral sources to the partial self-sufficiency of lithium salt products, which has improved the independent ability of lithium salt supply.

Obviously, the industrial enterprises with high self-sufficiency rate of mineral sources are more likely to stand firm in the era of lithium electricity. In addition to plus lithium ore resources, Yiwei Lithium Energy, BYD, Ganfeng Lithium Industry and other enterprises have already begun to strengthen the development of domestic salt lake lithium extraction in order to improve domestic independent control; Ningde era, Guoxuan Hi-Tech and other battery enterprises stationed in Yibin, Sichuan, is expected to speed up the industrialization of lithium extraction technology from lithium mica. In the future, power battery enterprises, lithium salt enterprises and mining enterprises will have a deeper integration, in order to achieve "lithium salt freedom". Power battery enterprises, their participation in the capacity of lithium resources will become one of the raw material supply of lithium salt enterprises, and the capacity of lithium salt enterprises will be digested and supported, and the integrated layout of lithium power industry will be presented with a multi-level structure.