With the rising prices of metals such as nickel, cobalt and lithium, the concept of power battery recycling, which can recycle metal resources, has been repeatedly mentioned. At the press conference of the State Information Office just held on February 28, Xin Guobin, vice minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, stressed the need to improve the recycling system of power batteries, support the tackling of key technologies such as efficient disassembly and recycling, and constantly improve the recovery rate and resource utilization efficiency.
It is worth mentioning that this is the third time that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other ministries have mentioned power battery recycling in 2022. Previously, the notice on accelerating the implementation Plan for the Comprehensive Utilization of Industrial Resources jointly issued by eight ministries and commissions on February 10 also mentioned the need to improve the recycling system of waste power batteries and promote the safe echelon application of waste power batteries in areas such as power preparation and recharging.
At a press conference held by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on January 12, Wang Weiming, director of the first Department of equipment Industry of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that in recent years, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, together with relevant departments, issued a series of policies such as the "interim measures for the Management of Recycling and Utilization of New Energy vehicle Power batteries" and other supporting measures to strengthen the traceability management of power batteries throughout the life cycle. By the end of December 2021, 10127 relevant enterprises have set up 10127 recycling service outlets in 31 provinces, cities and autonomous regions across the country, 45 key enterprises of echelon and recycling have actively played an exemplary and leading role, and the recycling system of power batteries has been initially established.
The importance of the industry is self-evident when power battery recycling is mentioned three times in just two months.
As we all know, since 2013, China's new energy vehicles have ushered in a large-scale promotion and application, and entered a stage of accelerated growth in 2014, the industry penetration continues to increase. SMM had predicted that by 2025, the total global sales of new energy vehicles would be 18.35 million, and the domestic penetration rate of new energy vehicles would rise to 30 per cent.
With the vigorous development of the new energy vehicle industry, the power battery recycling market is also growing day by day. Tianfeng Securities previously pointed out that the early market of new energy power batteries have begun to enter the decommissioning period. It is estimated that the cumulative scrap of power batteries will reach 1.16 million tons by 2024, and Donghai Securities also predicts that the market space for disassembly and recycling of power batteries will reach 107.43 billion yuan by 2030.
According to relevant media reports, the cumulative decommissioning of power batteries in China has reached nearly 200000 tons in 2020, and this figure may rise to nearly one million tons in 2025. The market survey agency SNE research revealed a few days ago that the number of scrapped electric vehicles (pure electric vehicles + plug-in hybrid vehicles) is expected to increase from 540000 in 2025 to 46.36 million in 2040, and the battery waste of these electric vehicles is expected to increase more than 80 times from 42GWh in 2025 to 3455GWhin 2040. Among them, the battery recycling market will grow from 26GWh in 2025 to 1606 GWh. in 2040.
As a result, it is enough to foresee the hot market of power battery recycling in the future, and such a cake worth hundreds of billions of dollars is naturally concerned by people in the industry. At a time when lithium resources are in short supply, a large number of lithium industry chain enterprises are competing for lithium mines, but also pay more attention to the power battery recycling industry.
Looking at the current power battery recycling market, in addition to Grammy, which has long been in the game, and Bang Pu, which has long been acquired by the Ningde era, including Guoxuan Hi-Tech, Yiwei Lithium Energy, LG New Energy and Rongbai Technology, BYD and others have laid out the power battery recycling business one after another.
SMM roughly sorted out several companies that made moves in the power battery industry in February, as follows:
On February 28, Green Mei and Rongbai Technology jointly built an industry chain strategic cooperation system of "Nickel-Cobalt Resources-Power Battery recovery-Ternary precursor Manufacturing-Ternary material Manufacturing". The two sides will carry out strategic cooperation in power battery recycling plate, Indonesian nickel resources smelting plate and precursor business.
On February 22, Sinorama Technology joined hands with New Energy and Panasonic China to promote power battery recycling business. Guanghua Science and Technology said that in order to strengthen cooperation in battery banking, operation and management of battery life-cycle assets, battery life extension, power battery echelon energy storage and material recovery, and promote the development of tripartite business, after friendly negotiations, the three parties signed this agreement on forming a comprehensive strategic cooperative relationship and carrying out multi-faceted, multi-tiered and multi-field cooperation.
Tianci also revealed in a recent investor survey that in view of the current rapidly rising prices and tight supply of lithium carbonate, the company has taken mitigation measures such as price transmission, signing long orders, and increasing the source of lithium carbonate through recycling business. At present, the company has locked the waste batteries of some downstream battery factories and vehicle factories, which will provide the company with a certain amount of lithium carbonate production capacity, which can appropriately alleviate the fluctuation of lithium carbonate price and guarantee the supply of raw materials. the company already has an annual capacity of 20,000 tons of lithium iron phosphate batteries.
On February 14, Tianqi mentioned on the interactive platform that the company signed a "Cooperation Framework Agreement" with FAW Asset Management Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of China first Automobile Group Co., Ltd., the two sides will jointly establish a power battery recycling system, jointly build a power battery recycling platform, strengthen the traceability management of power batteries, and jointly build a shared recycling service network.
Around February 16, Nandu Power said that 25000 tons of capacity in the first phase of its 100000-ton lithium power recovery project would be released one after another from March this year, with lithium salt being the first to come out. The recycled waste battery changes from battery to resource with a production cycle of about 20 days.
On February 14, Tianneng Holdings said that the company and the people's Government of Binhai County jointly signed an investment agreement on the project of high-value recycling of 100000 tons of waste lithium-ion batteries per year. The total investment of the project is 3 billion yuan, which is divided into two phases, of which the first phase of the project plans to invest 1.9 billion yuan with an annual processing capacity of 60, 000 tons, and the second phase of the project plans to invest 1.1 billion yuan with an annual processing capacity of 40, 000 tons.
On February 8, Jinyuan shares announced that the company and Shanda Qili signed a "strategic cooperation agreement", and the two sides will jointly expand the recycling network of waste lithium batteries in urban areas. carry out cooperation in recycling, echelon reuse and recycling of waste lithium batteries, and promote the development of waste lithium battery recycling industry.
From the layout of a group of enterprises in power battery recycling in the above short period of one month, it is not difficult to see the hot degree of this field. In addition to policy support, the rapid rise in raw material prices is also the main reason for the "money" of power battery recycling. Take lithium carbonate as an example. According to the spot price of SMM, as of March 3, the spot price of battery-grade lithium carbonate has broken through the price level of 490000 yuan, with an average price of 491000 yuan / ton, up 213000 yuan / ton from the beginning of 2021, an increase of 76.62%.
"Click to order to view the spot historical price of SMM new energy products.
Recent research by SMM showed that cost pressure surged downstream last week and the pace of procurement slowed slightly. The emotional side led to a slowdown in lithium carbonate prices, but as rigid demand led to a decline in raw material inventories, purchasing sentiment rose downstream this week, and transaction prices rose rapidly. From a fundamental point of view, the output of mainstream manufacturers of lithium carbonate recovered in March, and there may be a small increase in imports. On the demand side, the growth rate of demand for materials such as lithium iron phosphate has slowed down under the high lithium price, which is lower than the high demand in January. As a result, the overall gap narrowed slightly to about 15%. But the gap is still causing the price of lithium carbonate to rise rapidly. "View details
And the price of lithium metal continues to rise. As of March 3, the average daily spot price of lithium metal rose another 60, 000 yuan to 2.71 million yuan / ton, an increase of 94.27% from the beginning of the year. With the rapid rise in the price of raw materials, the recycling price of power battery has also risen sharply. According to industry insiders, the discount coefficient of some batteries has risen from 60% of the lowest period in 2020 to more than 100% today, and even some buyers are snapping up goods at high prices, shouting a discount factor of 115% or even 120%. Xiamen tungsten industry holding subsidiary related personnel revealed, "everyone is very hot, a price a day." Some suppliers of waste batteries said that the recycling price of power batteries rose too fast and exceeded expectations. In this case, recycling enterprises are to increase the price to buy, for fear of buying late and then raise the price.
From this, it is not difficult to see that the power battery recycling industry is highly profitable. As early as 2021, all kinds of news such as the non-standard power battery recycling market spread like wildfire. Public data show that from 2018 to now, the "regular army" of power battery recycling has really been approved by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. There are only 47 companies that meet the "new energy vehicle waste power battery comprehensive utilization industry norms and conditions", and more and more "small workshops" pour in.
Among them, because the enterprises on the "whitelist" have paid a large cost in technological upgrading and plant transformation to meet the expected standards, they are obviously unable to compete with "small workshops" in terms of price when recycling power batteries. Small workshops tend to pay higher prices to "cut off Hu", which leads to a large number of decommissioned batteries flowing into informal recycling channels. If it is not handled properly, it will have a great impact on the environment and ecology.
According to relevant media statistics, there are a total of 15000 enterprises related to "power lithium battery recycling" in China. Among them, in 2020 alone, the number of domestic power battery recycling enterprises increased by 2579, an increase of more than 250% over the same period last year. From this, we can also see the great disparity between the regular army and the irregular army. Industry insiders believe that in the future, with the support of various normative guidance documents, recycling enterprises can strengthen agreement cooperation with car companies, battery factories and other industrial chain enterprises to find a reasonable business model.
The layout of power battery recycling business is not only the lithium battery-related enterprises mentioned above, as the state pays more and more attention to power battery recycling and the huge profits brought by the industry, many car companies also layout the field of battery recycling one after another.
Tesla also said in his 2020 impact report in August 2021 that battery recycling systems would be tailored to different factories. Tesla also launched a battery recycling service on the official website, reminding users to dispose of any power batteries on their Tesla vehicles at will, while Ford Motor announced that it was working with Redwood, the largest lithium-ion battery recycling company in the United States, to establish a supply chain for battery recycling and electric vehicle batteries.
On the domestic side, FAW Asset Management Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of FAW Group, also signed a "Cooperation Framework Agreement" with Tianqi shares on February 14, aiming to jointly establish a power battery recycling system, build a power battery recycling platform, strengthen the traceability management of power batteries, and jointly build a shared recycling service network.
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