The price of lithium carbonate skyrocketed by 66%! "Lithium Electric heating" A number of leading enterprises have joined the war of "snatching Lithium".

SMM June 4: according to the spot quotation of SMM, as of June 4, the price of domestic battery-grade lithium carbonate was 89000,90,000 yuan / ton, with an average price of 88000 yuan / ton, up 66 percent from the beginning of the year.

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It is worth mentioning that according to the historical price of SMM, the price of lithium has continued to rise since October 2020, and the price of lithium carbonate has doubled since the beginning of 2021 alone. The fundamental reason is that the eye-catching sales of terminal new energy vehicles have led to a continuous increase in battery capacity, superimposed by the shortage of lithium ore raw materials.

Affected by the uptrend of downstream demand, recently, many listed companies with business scope involving lithium materials have announced that the capacity of lithium carbonate will be increased one after another. The following is the specific capacity investment of the major companies in the past month:

Ganfeng Lithium Industry:

On May 28th, Ganfeng Lithium Industry announced that when the debugging and construction team of Minera Exar of Ganfeng Company arrived at the site of its Cauchari-Olaroz Lithium Salt Lake project to help promote the production start-up of the first phase of the 40, 000-ton battery-grade lithium carbonate project, the company considered that Cauchari-Olaroz Lithium Salt Lake has rich lithium resources and superimposed the good expectation of domestic and foreign market demand for high-end lithium salt products in the future. It is decided to start the evaluation of the feasibility of expanding production in the second phase of the Cauchari-Olaroz Lithium Salt Lake project, and it is initially planned that the second phase will have a production capacity of not less than 20, 000 tons of lithium carbonate equivalent.

It is reported that the construction plan of the second phase of the project will be carried out after the first phase of the project is put into production, that is, in the second half of 2022, and formal production will begin in 2025.

On May 6, Ganfeng Lithium Industry also issued an announcement that it agreed to the company's wholly-owned subsidiary Ganfeng International Trading (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. to make an offer to acquire all the issued shares of Bacanora (except Shanghai Ganfeng already held shares) with its own funds, with a transaction value of no more than 190 million pounds. After the completion of the deal, Shanghai Ganfeng will hold a 100 per cent stake in Bacanora, while Shanghai Ganfeng and Bacanora each hold a 50 per cent stake in the Sonora project, a lithium clay lithium extraction project in Mexico, which is currently one of the largest lithium resource projects in the world, and the total lithium resource of the project is about 8.82 million tons of lithium carbonate equivalent.

Made by Koda:

On May 25, in response to the question whether Qinghai Earthquake would affect the progress of Lanke Lithium extraction project, Koda made a reply on an interactive platform, as the earthquake point was hundreds of kilometers away from Golmud, where Lanke Lithium Industry is located. so it didn't have a material impact on Lanke Lithium Industry. At the same time, Koda Manufacturing revealed that Lanke Lithium Industry's annual production capacity of 20,000 tons of battery-grade lithium carbonate project has been put into trial operation, is currently fully promoting the release of capacity.

Chilean lithium mining company SQM:

In response to the rebound in demand and rising prices, Chilean lithium mining company SQM has put forward a plan to expand lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide production capacity by the end of 2022. It is reported that the company has advanced its plan to expand production of 180000 tons of lithium carbonate and 30, 000 tons of lithium hydroxide originally scheduled for 2023. Its total production is expected to reach 140000 tons in 2022, an increase of 47-55 per cent over 2021.

Yongxing material:

On May 17, Yongxing material announced that the company plans to raise no more than 1.1 billion yuan. For annual production of 20, 000 tons of battery-grade lithium carbonate project, 1.8 million tons / year lithium ore efficient mineral processing and comprehensive utilization project, annual production capacity of 20, 000 tons of automobile high-pressure common rail, air valve and other silver rod projects and supplementary liquidity.

Among them, the project with an annual production capacity of 20,000 tons of battery-grade lithium carbonate is expected to take 12 months. Jiangxi Yongxing New Energy, a wholly owned subsidiary of Yongxing Materials, is proposed to be the main body of the project. After the completion of the project, it will increase the company's annual production capacity of 20,000 tons of battery-grade lithium carbonate.

The other project of high efficiency mineral processing and comprehensive utilization of 1.8 million tons / a lithium ore is set up as the upstream matching of the battery-grade lithium carbonate project with an annual production capacity of 20, 000 tons, which aims to provide raw materials for the production of downstream battery-grade lithium carbonate and to build a battery-grade lithium carbonate whole industry chain system. The construction period of the project is also 12 months, and the comprehensive utilization and processing capacity of 1.8 million tons of lithium porcelain stone will be formed after the completion of the project.

The above is only the expansion of lithium carbonate by major companies since May. In addition, many enterprises have already joined the war of "snatching lithium". For example, the Ningde era, which has the same scenery recently, has already gone through pre-layout to form a closed-loop industrial map of the core raw materials of "copper, cobalt, lithium, nickel resources-lithium carbonate / lithium hydroxide-cathode materials (including precursors)-recycling". In January, LG New Energy also signed a long-term supply contract with SQM, stipulating that SQM will supply a total of 55000 tons of battery-grade lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide to LG from 2021 to 2029. At the end of February, Guoxuan Hi-Tech also signed a strategic agreement with the people's Government of Yichun City to invest 11.5 billion yuan in the construction of lithium power new energy industry projects in Yichun Economic Development Zone, including lithium carbonate production and lithium battery supporting materials. ..

It is worth mentioning that after a number of enterprises entered the bureau in turn, according to SMM research, since March, the monthly balance of lithium carbonate in China has changed from negative to positive, accumulating 6000 tons in June, accounting for about 28% of the total demand. Therefore, SMM expects that, taking into account the recent increase in lithium carbonate domestic supply in Qinghai and Jiangxi, the increase in imports, lithium carbonate prices under pressure, lithium carbonate prices are weak and stable in the near future, and are expected to decline slightly. "View details

However, according to SMM's previous forecast, with the increase of the new energy market, the demand for lithium batteries in the new energy market is expected to reach 102 GWH, an increase of 60% over the same period last year, and the corresponding demand for lithium salt will increase significantly. And judging from the demand segmentation of China's lithium industry in the past 20 years, China's lithium battery industry has increased from about 20% in 2000 to 76%. The product level is from lithium hydroxide to lithium carbonate with a wider range of applications. So the future of lithium carbonate is still worth looking forward to.