[SMM Analysis] A Review of This Week's Spot Scrap Price Trends, 2025.3.24-2025.3.28

【SMM Analysis】A Review of This Week's Scrap Spot Price Trends, March 24-28, 2025. Supply side: This week, lithium chemicals, nickel salts, and cobalt salts experienced fluctuating operations. However, on the supply side, the psychological selling prices of grinding mills and traders remained unchanged. This week, the coefficients of ternary and LCO black mass were basically stable. Taking LCO and ternary pole piece black mass as examples: the current coefficient is around 77-79%, with an average coefficient of 78%. The current coefficient of ternary pole piece black mass is 75-78, with an average of 76.5%. On the downstream demand side, most are not optimistic about the continued rise of cobalt salts, and the proportion of pure cobalt scrap in the market is less than 10%, with LFP being the main component. Enterprises purchasing pure cobalt scrap are relatively fewer compared to ternary, and when given the option to choose ternary black mass, most enterprises adopt a wait-and-see attitude towards the rising coefficient of pure cobalt scrap. On the supply side, scrap LCO batteries account for a relatively small proportion in the overall scrap market, with scarce supply, and a small amount of goods are mostly concentrated in the hands of traders. Under the continuous rise of cobalt salts, most enterprises choose to hold back from selling or sell a small amount at high prices. Cost side: This week, the prices of cobalt salts and nickel salts fluctuated, but the previous rise has to some extent repaired the cost and profitability of the grinding end of ternary and pure cobalt scrap. Currently, the profitability of wet-process scrap LCO batteries and ternary scrap is hovering around the cost line. However, due to insufficient market supply and the inability of most enterprises to achieve immediate buying and selling of scrap and salt products, some small and medium-sized wet-process enterprises still report being in a state of inversion.