SHANGHAI, Feb 18 (SMM) – China produced 22,000 mt of lithium iron phosphate in January, up 13.1% from December. The downstream supporting models continued to sell well in January. At the same time, the market expects that the new energy automobile industry will grow rapidly in the future, and the proportion of lithium iron phosphate applications in new energy vehicles and electric two-wheelers will continue to increase. The demand for lithium iron phosphate is strong, and lithium iron phosphate production will increase month on month. Most companies maintained high operating rates before the CNY, and a few manufacturers stopped production for maintenance, limited by logistics shutdown. SMM expects the output of lithium iron phosphate to decline slightly in February.
China produced 6,800 mt of lithium iron phosphate in January, down 7.1% from December. Most downstream consumer battery companies began to close and stop production in late January, and basically finished the CNY stockpiling before mid-January. In addition, prices of lithium salt rose too high this month, and raw material inventories stood low in some lithium manganate companies. Combined with the difficulty of downstream price transmission, some lithium manganate companies started the holiday in advance, and their output decreased slightly. Most lithium manganate companies started operations in late February. SMM expects the output of lithium manganate to drop significantly from the previous month in February.
