[2019.07.18 minutes of internal morning meeting of cobalt lithium new energy] cobalt salt price bottom high premium smelting products close to it

Published: Jul 18, 2019 11:08

SMM July 18, 2010:

Battery Terminal Market:

Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has released the sixth batch of recommended models for new energy vehicles in 2019. Because the recommended catalogue is dominated by bus models, lithium iron phosphate batteries account for as much as 79%. At present, lithium iron phosphate battery is still mainly used in bus and special vehicle market because of its low cost and large capacity. In the future, there will also be more room for demand growth in the low-speed passenger car and energy storage market.

Upstream raw material price:

Cobalt: the price of cobalt salt bottomed out this week. The opening rate of large leading factories has not yet recovered, and some traders are optimistic that there is limited room for decline in the future market. Manufacturers sell at a low price, and the price of cobalt salt metal is at the bottom of about 170000 yuan. Foreign media cobalt prices continue to decline slightly, within a reasonable range with domestic cobalt prices, in addition, due to the decline in the price of cobalt salt raw materials, cobalt prices also fell sharply on Thursday, in line with SMM's previous high premium smelting products close to low-cost cobalt salt expectations.

Lithium: battery-grade lithium carbonate demand is not good, the market mentality is bearish, manufacturers are not active to pick up goods. For some cathode materials large plants batch long unit price, battery-grade lithium carbonate has reached 6.8-69000 yuan / ton. The price of industrial grade lithium carbonate with main content more than 99.2% (which can be directly used in lithium manganate) is relatively strong, stable at 6.2-65000 yuan / ton, but for industrial grade lithium carbonate with high impurity content or main content less than 99.2%, the price is about 60 000 yuan / ton, and has a further downward trend. Lithium hydroxide, battery-grade lithium hydroxide procurement demand is light, upstream manufacturers have appeared in order to return funds as soon as possible low-price throwing behavior, it is known that the lowest market quotation is 76000 yuan / ton.

 

SMM Cobalt Lithium Research team

Hong Lu 021 51666814

Ning Ziwei 021 51666780

Qin Jingjing 021 51666828

Long press attention

Learn more about the highlights

 

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