The 10th Secondary Lead-acid Battery Industry Summit 2020—held by SMM—took place today, at which SMM senior Pb analyst Xia Wenming gave a speech on the theme of “How China lead market will fare in H2 2020 on the backdrop of oversupply”

China’s copper cathode output rose sharply in August due to minimal maintenance and ample supply of copper scrap.  

China’s nickel sulphate output jumped 15.69% on the month and 18.46% on the year, to 60,500 mt or 13,300 mt in nickel content in August.

The China Solid Waste and Chemicals Management Bureau, a unit of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, granted import allowances for 10,423 mt of high-grade copper scrap to 14 companies in the latest release, bringing the cumulative quotas for this year to 540,184 mt.

Jiangsu Tafel New Energy Technology on May 17 kicked off construction of its phase II and III capacity of a power battery project, which is located at the Jiangning Development Zone, Nanjing.  

Prices of most light and medium-to-heavy rare earth oxides increased last week as sellers firmed up offers on active enquiries by downstream consumers. SMM expects the improvement in enquiries to continue to support prices of medium-to-heavy rare earth oxides this week, while prices of light rare earth, such as praseodymium-neodymium oxide, will likely pull back as the strength of demand may unable to sustain a price rally. 

Hubei Linuo New Energy Technology has begun trial operations of its phase I capacity of a battery project for commercial new energy vehicles at the Shiyan New Industrial Zone, Hubei province.

China's installed capacity of batteries to power electric vehicles climbed 29.5% from a month ago to 3.6GWh in April, following a surge of 363.2% in the month of March, showed data from the China Automobile Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance, suggesting the country’s EV sector continues to recover from the fallout caused by the coronavirus pandemic. 

Demand for lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries in the new energy vehicle market, which enjoy more cost advantage as compared to high-nickel ternary batteries, will likely increase with support from the latest 2020 NEV subsidy policy, under which only passenger cars costing less than 300,000 yuan/unit will receive subsidies. 

Last month, output of NPI in China extended its downtrend that began since November 2019, decreasing 4.46% from March to 40,200 mt Ni, some 12.25% lower than the same month a year ago, showed SMM data.