Is "demon nickel" crazy? High Nickel permeability greatly increases the Nickel War continues to escalate

After the "Cobalt Grandma", the "demon nickel", which has been silent for many years, has also come out to "stir up trouble"!

As we all know, the construction of ternary batteries is inseparable from nickel, and under the trend of high nickel technology, the amount of nickel used will rise sharply in the future, but the price of nickel, which has always been very cheap, has "risen" recently, and it is "very evil."

"Devil Nickel" suddenly came out of the hole a few days ago. On July 23rd, the international nickel price soared 3.22%, rising nearly $1200 (about 7800 yuan) per ton in less than three trading days. Echoing this, nickel-related stocks in the secondary market have also soared sharply recently, Qingdao Intermediate, China Metallurgical strong sealing board, Shengtun Mining, Green Mei, CFHI and so on have followed.

Judging from the recent reports, it seems that the "troublemaker Tesla" has opened the "demon's nest". Tesla signed a nickel supply agreement with global mining giant BHP (BHP Group) on July 22nd. Some of Tesla's nickel will be supplied by BHP Billiton's Western Nickel Company in Western Australia. Nickel West produces about 80, 000 tons of nickel a year, enough to produce about 2 million electric car batteries.

Notably, the deal is the third nickel supply agreement signed by Tesla in the past eight months, after the company already signed supply agreements with Brazil's Vale (Vale) and Goro. Although BHP Billiton did not disclose the scale of the deal, Benchmark MinonalIntelligence analysts estimate that BHP Billiton will supply as much as 18000 tons of nickel to Tesla each year.

In addition to that trigger, BHP insiders say nickel demand in the battery industry is expected to grow by 500 per cent over the next decade, largely due to growing global demand for electric vehicles. Not only that, Toyota recently suddenly announced that the "bipolar Ni-MH battery" has been opened for mass production and installed in the hybrid system, and the new generation of AQUA listed overseas has been loaded.

From our core energy point of view, we expect cumulative demand for nickel in the next few years to be 250 per cent of what it has been in the past 30 years. Nickel is the outstanding winner of the decarbonization world. Because no matter what metal combination is tested in the positive electrode of lithium-ion battery, the energy density of nickel is the highest. It is the main force of lithium-ion batteries. " So says the head of global mining giant BHP Billiton.

Great increase in high nickel permeability

Industry analysis shows that the increase of nickel content in ternary batteries can significantly enhance the energy density of battery products; at the same time, compared with cobalt, which is more volatile in price, nickel is widely distributed and easier to be mass-produced. The cost advantage of high-nickel and low-cobalt battery is prominent, and the future market of high-nickel battery is broad.

At present, Tesla, who has no dust in the global electric vehicle market, a large part of them have adopted the NCM811 high-nickel batteries of "old partner" Panasonic NCA and LG new energy, and most mainstream European car companies also prefer high-nickel batteries; major battery factories around the world are also speeding up the development and mass production of high-nickel and low-cobalt batteries.

Zeng Yuqun, chairman of Ningde Times, said earlier that 811 batteries now account for more than 20% of the company's total power battery shipments. It is understood that the sales volume of power battery system in Ningde era will be 44.45 GWh in 2020. In terms of 20%, Ningde Times 811 battery shipments have reached 8.9 GWH; this figure has exceeded the annual shipments of all types of batteries by most battery manufacturers in the world.

Not only in the Ningde era, but even BYD, which has been promoting blade batteries with great fanfare, is actively adding high-nickel batteries. In April this year, the domestic Ford Mustang Mach-E was officially launched, using BYD's NCM811 battery. In addition, Yiwei Lithium Energy, Funeng Technology, Guoxuan Tech, Lishen Battery and so on also have a special preference for high nickel.

It is worth noting that Tesla plans to use LG's NCMA battery, which contains up to 90 per cent nickel, on the Shanghai-made Model Y model in the near future. Not only that, Ningde Times and Panasonic are already developing "rare metal-free batteries" with lower cobalt, high nickel and even cobalt-free, while Tesla has also released his own "100% nickel battery". It is reported that in August this year, the honeycomb cobalt-free battery will be installed in one of the models of domestic customers on the global debut, is expected to go on sale in the fourth quarter of this year.

According to the research report of Minsheng Securities, the proportion of ternary high nickel in heavy new cars listed at home and abroad in 2021 is relatively high, including popular models such as Tesla ModelY/Cybertrunk, Volkswagen ID.4/ID.6, Nissan Ariya, etc., which is expected to lead to a further increase in the permeability of high nickel in ternary materials. The industry predicts that the permeability of high-nickel ternary materials will reach more than 60% and 70% by 2025.

The battle for nickel continues to escalate.

In the future, with the pursuit of high-nickel batteries by battery companies, the use of nickel will surge sharply. In 2019, only 9% of the world's nickel is used in the production of batteries, 80% of the nickel is used in the production of stainless steel, and more nickel resources will be used in batteries in the future. BenchmarkMineralIntelligence predicts that demand for nickel for power batteries will soar from 139000 tonnes in 2020 to 1.4 million tonnes by 2030, accounting for 30 per cent of total nickel demand.

In the face of the general trend of high nickel, many enterprises are stepping up the layout of nickel resources. Musk has said that if a mining company can provide large amounts of nickel, Tesla will give a huge order to that company. In addition to buying from BHP Billiton, Tesla also plans to build a nickel battery factory in Indonesia and negotiated a large nickel ore order with Giga Metals, a Canadian mining company.

Recently, Yiwei LiNeng plans to set up a high-nickel ternary cathode material joint venture with Bertre and SKI, which will build a project with an annual output of 50, 000 tons of high-nickel materials. At the same time, Yiwei LiNeng also signed agreements with Huayou Cobalt, Yongrui Holdings, Glaucous and LINDO to build a laterite nickel ore wet smelting project in Indonesia with an annual output of 120000 tons of nickel and 15000 tons of cobalt, with a total investment of about 13.4 billion yuan.

In addition, Korea cathode Materials Co., Ltd. has signed a large order with Grammy, which plans to purchase 176000 tons of high-nickel precursors within three years. It is reported that Rongbai Technology plans to increase the production capacity of high-nickel materials to 300000 tons by 2025 and to 1 million tons by 2030.

Market participants believe that the vigorous development of new energy vehicles led to an increase in demand for nickel sulfate, nickel sulfate raw material gap led to nickel bean consumption, electrolytic nickel inventory continued to be removed to a low level, supporting the price of nickel. In addition, Indonesia's "iron ban" and Russian nickel taxes have led to continuous supply disturbances, which have increased the expectation of a shortage of nickel resources in the short term. Both reality and expectation are good, and the price center of gravity is expected to move up further.