From the perspective of market changes, the price of lithium carbonate has skyrocketed recently, and the prices of lithium carbonate enterprises have increased by a large margin for several weeks in a row. According to SMM's latest spot quotation, the average price of battery-grade lithium carbonate in the domestic market rose to 141000 yuan / ton on Sept. 14, up 27500 / ton from the beginning of September.
In addition, Battery Network noted that Pilbara, a leading Australian lithium mining company, held its second spodumene concentrate auction on BMX electronic platform today, with a final auction price of 2240USDUniverse t and an auction volume of 8000 tons. Earlier,), Pilbara's first spodumene concentrate on the BMX platform sold for $1315 a tonne at auction.
According to Haitong Securities, considering the sea freight, the production cost of lithium salt is more than 150000 yuan, and considering the reasonable profit of the lithium salt factory, the corresponding lithium price will certainly exceed 200000 yuan.
At present, there is still a certain gap in the raw material end of the lithium market. The volume of overseas mines and salt lakes will begin at the end of this year or early next year. The shortage of raw materials may last for several months. In terms of supply and demand, supply will continue to fall short of demand, and prices may continue to rise sharply.
Why is lithium raw material so scarce?
According to the latest data from the China Automobile Association, from January to August, the production and sales of new energy vehicles in China completed 1.813 million and 1.799 million respectively, an increase of 1.9 times over the same period last year, and the cumulative sales penetration rate was close to 11%. Among them, the production and sales of new energy vehicles completed 309000 and 321000 respectively in August, an increase of 1.8 times over the same period last year, and the penetration rate of new energy vehicles increased to 17.8% in that month. The penetration rate of new energy passenger vehicles is close to 20%. Although it has been made clear that new energy models are a major trend, the rapid growth of the new energy model market is still beyond most people's expectations.
At a time when the world is stepping into the era of electrification, as the power source of pure electric vehicles, the social status of lithium is no lower than that of oil. Moreover, with the rapid rise in sales of new energy vehicles, the demand for lithium resources in the global battery industry chain is increasing, and the prices of raw materials have been rising since the second half of last year. It is not difficult to see that lithium resources have become a key factor restricting the development of the new energy industry.
Who is in charge of the lithium supply chain?
The stable supply of lithium resources determines the rapid development of the battery industry chain. from the current resource reserves, the proportion of domestic lithium, cobalt, nickel and other key raw materials is not high, but with a large number of overseas distribution, China's current lithium resources have mastered "half of the country". According to the incomplete statistics of the battery network, the basic situation of the distribution of lithium stocks in China is as follows:
According to the data released by the US Geological Survey, the global lithium resources (metal equivalent) reserves are about 13.5 million tons and the proven reserves are about 39.78 million tons. Lithium ores and halogen water resources are mainly distributed in South America, North America, Asia and Oceania. Due to the relatively mature system and convenient transportation of lithium ore in Australia, it has become the main source of ore series in the world. Most of the domestic leading enterprises such as Ganfeng Lithium Industry and Tianqi Lithium Industry rely on imported Australian ore supplies, and since the beginning of this year, Ganfeng Lithium Industry has obviously accelerated the overseas layout of upstream resources, and acquired a number of lithium resource projects in Africa, Argentina and other countries through acquisitions.
In addition, data show that China's proven lithium resources (metal equivalent) reserves are about 5.2 million tons, of which salt lake resources account for about 70% of the country's total reserves and ore resources account for about 30%.
In terms of salt lakes, the country is mainly distributed in Qinghai, Tibet, Xinjiang and other regions, and occurs in the form of surface brine and surface intercrystalline brine. According to the latest SMM data, the lithium reserves of the five major salt lakes in Qinghai are about 15.91 million tons of lithium carbonate equivalent, accounting for 62.4% of the country's total lithium resources. Among them, Chaerhan Salt Lake currently holds 12.02 million tons of lithium chloride reserves, equivalent to about 8.91 million tons of lithium carbonate equivalent, ranking first in the country.
At present, about 3700 square kilometers of mining rights in Chaerhan Salt Lake are held by Salt Lake shares. With the advantages of resource scale, production cost, process optimization and lithium extraction technology innovation, it will play a more important role in the global lithium resource supply pattern in the future.
In terms of lithium mines, the most potential lithium deposits in China are mainly distributed in Ganzi Prefecture and Aba Prefecture in Sichuan Province, such as Methyl Kaconding 134Ore, the best lithium mine in Asia, opencast mining, and low mining costs. At present, the proven lithium reserves are equivalent to about 4.68 million tons of LCE, and only about 1/3 of them are explored, so there is a wide space to increase reserves in the later stage. The mine is currently held by Rongjie shares and currently has an ore mining capacity of 1.05 million tons per year and a mineral processing capacity of 450000 tons per year.
In addition, the main lithium resource supplier in China is Yelonggou spodumene, which is currently held by Shengxin Lithium Energy with a production scale of 405000 tons per year, while Aba Lijiagou spodumene Mine, held by Sichuan Energy Power and Yahua Group, has not yet been put into production.
If there's a mine, there's nothing to worry about?
Generally speaking, companies with lithium resources are bound to have an absolute say in the battery industry chain, and their future performance will be greatly released. However, due to the fact that most of China's lithium resources come from overseas, the instability of the international situation and the fluctuation of the market, we need to further increase the control of lithium resources and innovate lithium extraction technology.
It is worth noting that with the release of a large number of new energy vehicles, the rise in raw material prices has caused panic in lithium resources in various regions of the world, not only the upstream enterprises of battery raw materials, many car companies at home and abroad have also begun to extend their supply to lithium mines for layout to ensure the security and stability of their own supply chain.
