Diaphragm products are becoming more and more popular. Power battery leader Ningde era, China Chuangxin Airlines and other recent huddles to upstream suppliers to "pay in advance", this unusual phenomenon indicates that the competition for diaphragms among battery companies will be extremely fierce in 2022.
"Battery companies that start slowly may not be able to buy goods."
A few days ago, Shanghai Enjie, a subsidiary of Enjie shares, signed an agreement with China Chuangxin Airlines, in which Shanghai Enjie promised to supply no more than 2.5 billion yuan in 2022, and China Innovation Airlines made an advance payment of 100 million yuan to Shanghai Enjie. Zheshang Securities analysis said that the assumption that the diaphragm purchase of China Innovation Airlines in 2022 includes a tax price of about 2.80 yuan per square meter, 2.5 billion orders correspond to a diaphragm purchase volume of about 890 million square meters, and corresponding lithium battery production is about 53.4GWh.
Shortly before that, Shanghai Enjie signed a diaphragm agreement with a large overseas car company, which will guarantee to a large overseas auto company in 2022-2024 that it will supply no more than 1.65 billion square meters of diaphragm products and no more than 900 million square meters of diaphragm products per year from 2025. In that case, the total supply of diaphragm will not exceed 2.55 billion square meters by 2025. According to the above-mentioned organization's algorithm, it can be roughly calculated that the corresponding battery output is about 153GWhh, and the order amount is at least 7 billion yuan.
Even earlier, at the end of 2021, Ningde Times, which has always been known for its strength, also made an advance payment of up to 850 million yuan to Enjie shares to ensure that Shanghai Enjie supplied wet-law barriers to the Ningde era in 2022. The total amount excluding tax is about 5.178 billion yuan. Similarly, according to the above algorithm, it is roughly estimated that the purchase quantity of the diaphragm in Ningde era is about 1.84 billion square meters, and the output of the corresponding battery is about 110GWh.
It can be seen that the purchase volume and amount of money involved in the above diaphragm orders are not small, corresponding to dozens of battery output, hundreds of GWh. Zheshang Securities Research newspaper believes that the intensive guarantee and supply agreement once again verifies the degree of diaphragm shortage in 2022, the diaphragm high-quality production capacity exceeds demand, and the price increase will gradually spread.
In such a situation, battery companies are increasing diaphragm procurement, diaphragm manufacturers continue to order. In December last year, Anhui Meixin, a subsidiary of Wachovia New Materials Holdings, signed a wet diaphragm procurement contract with Baoli, which will supply no less than 200 million square meters from 2022 to 2024. In August last year, Xingyuan signed an agreement with LG New Energy to wet-coat the LG new energy supply with a diaphragm of about 4.311 billion yuan. In addition, Xingyuan material also signed an agreement with Northvolt, the contract amount is not more than 3.34 billion yuan.
There is a huge gap in supply
According to industry data, the global output of lithium diaphragm is 10.55 billion square meters in 2021, and the output of lithium diaphragm in China is 7.31 billion square meters. It is estimated that the global demand for lithium diaphragm will exceed 13.5 billion square meters in 2022, with an increase of more than 3 billion square meters. However, the global production capacity of the new diaphragm master coil will not exceed 5 billion square meters in 2022. Taking into account the capacity climbing and yield, the actual effective new output is less than 2 billion square meters, there is an obvious gap.
Industry analysts believe that after 2022, the demand for new energy vehicles in China, the United States and Europe will continue to increase to drive the demand for wet diaphragm, while the BYD blade battery and energy storage market will drive the demand for dry diaphragm. From the domestic point of view, from 2022, the domestic diaphragm supply and demand relationship has gradually changed into a shortage of supply. The rapid growth of lithium battery demand has led to a sharp increase in diaphragm demand, but the domestic diaphragm enterprises have limited production capacity and supply has been unable to meet the demand. At the same time, the diaphragm industry has a short-term price increase catalysis.
In the long run, according to the estimates of the international organization W-Scope, the global lithium battery market will be close to 1400GWH by 2025, and the demand for diaphragms will reach 20 billion square meters; by 2030, the global lithium battery market may exceed 3000GWhs, and the demand for diaphragms will be close to 32 billion square meters, which is 5.3 times that of 2020.
In terms of amount, W-Scope expects that only 2025 global basement membrane profit space is expected to reach 4.86 billion yuan, coating film profit space of about 6.3 billion yuan, so the overall profit space of the diaphragm industry is expected to reach about 11 billion yuan within 5 years.
Short-term supply increment is limited
Under the expectation of huge demand, diaphragm enterprises have increased their efforts to expand production. In December last year, Lanketu launched a high-end lithium battery diaphragm project, with a total investment of 13 billion yuan to build 11 bases nationwide and build 52 new large-width ultra-high-strength diaphragm production lines with an estimated annual production capacity of about 7.5 billion square meters.
Leading boss Enjie shares in November last year proposed to raise no more than 12.8 billion yuan, for Chongqing Enjie, Jiangsu Enjie, Suzhou Jie Li and other diaphragm projects. In addition, Enjie also signed agreements with Yiwei LiNeng and Ningde Times to jointly build 1.6 billion square meters of wet lithium diaphragm and coated membrane projects and 3.6 billion flat wet / dry diaphragm projects respectively.
Xingyuan material is not weak, and it is planned to invest 10 billion yuan to build a diaphragm project in Nantong, which will produce an annual output of 3 billion square meters of wet diaphragm and coated diaphragm. In addition, Sinopec plans to invest 895 million yuan in November last year to build a "special wet diaphragm production line with an annual output of 320 million square meters for lithium batteries." In May of the same year, Sinopec Lithium membrane was built in Nanjing with an annual output of 1.04 billion square meters of lithium ion battery diaphragm production line, with a total investment of about 3.753 billion yuan.
It is worth noting that due to the continuous hot demand in the downstream market, the lithium diaphragm has attracted many enterprises from other fields, such as Hengli Petrochemical in the petrochemical field, conch entrepreneurship in the field of environmental protection, Changyang technology in the optoelectronic field, and so on.
It is understood that in December last year, Hengli Petrochemical wet diaphragm production line equipment procurement signing ceremony was held in Suzhou. Henli Sinopec's Kanghui New Materials will introduce 12 wet lithium battery diaphragm production lines from Japan's Zipu Machinery Co., Ltd. and Qingdao Zhongke Hualian New Materials Co., Ltd., with an annual production capacity of 1.6 billion square meters.
Conch venture through the wholly-owned subsidiary Anhui Haichuang shares in the wet diaphragm field of the cutting-edge company Hengchuan science and technology, the current Hengchuan science and technology Taizhou base planning capacity of 1 billion square meters / year. In September last year, Changyang Science and Technology, through its wholly-owned subsidiary Hefei Changyang, invested 591 million yuan to build a "lithium-ion battery diaphragm project with an annual output of 560 million square meters."
Although the enthusiasm for diaphragm expansion is high, market participants believe that because the diaphragm industry has the characteristics of large investment, long construction cycle and low rate of quality products, the diaphragm production cycle is longer, and the increment of diaphragm production capacity is expected to be limited in the future. In the next 1-2 years, diaphragm expansion is mainly concentrated in leading enterprises, the increment of diaphragm supply is limited, and the mismatch pattern of supply and demand in the industry is expected to continue.
