The Development Plan for the New Energy Vehicle Industry (2021-2035) suggests that average power consumption of new pure electric passenger vehicles should be reduced to 12 kwh/100 km, sales of new NEVs should reach 20% of total new vehicle sales

China has recently released the winter heating season policies for 2020/21, and while the initial view is that supply disruption may be less this year, there are still question marks over the impacts on demand.

Prices of Chinese cobalt products may slow their downside trend in the short term as uncertainties around raw materials imports remain even as top supplier South Africa has eased coronavirus lockdown measures to level 4 which allowed freight transport to resume. 

Several cobalt salt producers in China, including a leading firm, plan to scale back operations in May, SMM learned, as downstream sectors are cutting output with the COVID-19 crisis battering global economies, and also due to high costs and raw material supply disruptions.

Copper scrap supply in China is estimated to have shrunk nearly 200,000 mt in the first three months of 2020, as escalated virus-control measures disrupted global trade flows and as Chinese suppliers held back on sales following a slump in copper prices. A total of 225,083 mt of copper scrap was imported to China in January-to-March, down close to 140,000 mt, or more than 38% from the same period last year, according to data from China customs. SMM estimates that those copper scrap imports, with average Cu content of 78.49%, contained 176,676 mt of copper, down more than 37% from the quarter ended March 2019.

Prices of ternary materials and precursors in China will see further downside risk before May as inventories continued to pile up, driven by slowed or delayed purchases by downstream producers of power batteries amid falling orders. 

SMM surveyed 41 major aluminium processors in 12 provinces and found that their average operating rate dipped 0.6 percentage point on a weekly basis to 74.4% last week.

The global widespread of COVID-19 has forced many countries to enforce stringent containment measures which result in a heavy impact on global economic activity. Over the past few months, we saw serious disruption of manpower, transportation and production in China. We are now seeing these scenarios happening around the world.

The global widespread of COVID-19 has forced many countries to enforce stringent containment measures which result in a heavy impact on global economic activity. Over the past two months, we saw serious disruption of manpower, transportation and production in China. We are now seeing these scenarios happening around the world. 

Prices of prebaked anode in China, an essential material used in aluminium smelting, will face further downside risks after April as a negative impact on demand from the COVID-19 outbreak continues to weigh on prebaked anode profits.