The expansion of negative materials and the escalation of the "arms race"

The rapid development of the battery industry has led to a substantial increase in the demand for upstream materials. At present, battery companies such as Ningde era, BYD, Yiwei Lithium Energy, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, Honeycomb Energy, China Chuangxin Airlines and other battery companies are stepping up efforts to expand production. According to Minsheng Securities statistics, the new battery capacity from 2021 to 2025 is 144/227/245/340/474GWh, which will continue to drive the rapid increase in demand for anode materials in the next few years.

Recently, the negative material industry has set off a new round of "arms race" for production expansion. The commissioning and ignition ceremony of Sichuan Jinhuineng (Ya'an) integrated production base for lithium-ion battery anode materials with an annual output of 100000 tons was held on March 31. The signing and launching ceremony was held for the project of graphitization of 150000 tons of Jinhuineng in Sichuan and 100000 tons of anode materials in Chongqing. On March 30, Huiyang New Energy signed a contract with the Linfen Ancient County Development Zone in Shanxi Province to produce 30,000 tons of anode materials per year.

On March 28th, a project with an annual production capacity of 30, 000 tons of lithium battery anode materials with a total investment of 2 billion yuan was launched in Anlong County, Guizhou Province. On March 25th, Inner Mongolia Snow, a subsidiary of National Technology Holdings, plans to invest in the construction of the "Annual production capacity of 100000 tons of New Energy Power Battery anode Materials Integration Project" in Suizhou, Hubei Province. On March 12, Jerry New Energy Technology Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Jerry Co., Ltd., started the project with an annual output of 100000 tons of lithium battery anode materials in Gangu County, Tianshui City, Gansu Province. "

Earlier, in February, a major project launching ceremony was held in Yancheng, Jiangsu. The Jiangsu Kaijin lithium battery anode material project has a total investment of 6 billion yuan and plans to build an integrated production base with an annual capacity of 200000 tons of lithium battery anode materials; Shanxi Huashun New Energy Technology Co., Ltd. has an annual capacity of 60, 000 tons of power lithium battery anode materials project completed and put into production; Zhaotong Shuifu City annual output of 100000 tons of lithium-ion battery graphite anode material integration project started.

In January this year, Shanxi Ju Neng Science and Technology Co., Ltd. started the project of 6000 tons of anode materials for lithium batteries in Jiangxian County; Guangxi Mianyu New Materials Co., Ltd. started the project of 150000 tons of high-performance anode materials for lithium-ion batteries in Yulin; the construction of the integrated base of 200000 tons of lithium battery anode materials in Meishan Anxiang County, led by Hunan Xin Entropy New material Technology Co., Ltd., has signed a contract for the project with an annual output of 50,000 tons of lithium battery anode materials.

According to industry data, shipments of anode materials in China reached 779000 tons in 2021, an increase of more than 86 percent over the same period last year. In terms of global shipments of anode materials, China has steadily ranked first in the world for many years, and its global market share of anode materials has further climbed to 92% in 2021, occupying an absolutely dominant position in the global market.

From the point of view of the supply pattern, the current negative material market has formed three major and four small patterns. The head company occupies a dominant position in the development of the industry by virtue of the advantages of products, customers, production capacity and cost, of which the "three" Betteri accounts for 24%, PUTALAI accounts for 15%, and Cedar shares account for 15%. Coupled with the "four small" Shangtai Technology, Zhongke Electric, Dongguan Kaijin, Xiang Fenghua, these seven enterprises accounted for a total of 88% of the negative material market.

Under the stimulation of the global market demand for new energy vehicles in 2021, there is a phased dislocation between supply and demand of lithium anode materials, superimposing the high prosperity of the whole industry in the future, and there is a huge room for imagination in the future. At a time when supply falls short of demand, the future negative material market will be a competition of scale, resources and technological innovation capability. It is estimated that the output of China's anode material enterprises is expected to break through the 1.2 million ton mark in 2022.

Previously, some industry organizations predicted that the global power battery demand will reach 1000GWh by 2025 and 2600GWh by 2030. If you add in the energy storage market, the demand will be even greater in the future. As far as the current plans of the world's major battery manufacturers are concerned, many of them look very radical, reflecting the industry's extremely optimistic expectations of future market demand. Then, in the future, the demand for negative materials in the industry will also be explosive growth.

The Bank of China Securities Research News pointed out that the barrier of negative materials is higher, the competition pattern is better, and the profitability of enterprises with high graphitization self-supply ratio and technological advantages is stronger. It is expected that in the next few years, the integrated layout and the new graphitization process will still be the focus of competition, and the enterprises with forward-looking layout in the integration and new technology will further reduce costs and expand revenue.

It is worth noting that in order to meet the needs of batteries with higher energy density, silicon-based anode materials are accelerating the industrialization process. Technically speaking, after decades of development, the specific capacity of traditional graphite negative electrode has reached 360365 mAh/g, which is very close to the theoretical specific capacity 372mAh/g, and the promotion space is limited. The theoretical specific capacity of silicon-based negative electrode is as high as 4200 mAh/g, which means that the capacity ceiling is more than ten times that of graphite negative electrode.

At present, Tesla, Ningde era, BYD, LG New Energy and other companies begin to actively mass produce power battery products that use silicon-carbon negative electrode, and some negative enterprises also begin to invest in the construction of silicon-carbon negative production line. Beitri, Shanshan shares, Jiangxi Zichen, Shenzhen Snow, Zhongke Electric, Jiangxi Zhengtuo, Sibao Technology, Chuangya Power, Dalian Lichang and others are actively promoting the industrialization of silicon-carbon negative electrode.

According to industry estimates, the global demand for silicon and carbon anodes is expected to reach 200000 tons in 2025, which will be significantly higher than the demand of about 10,000 tons in 2020. Considering that the cost-eliminating silicon-carbon negative electrode technology is more mature, the permeability is expected to reach 50% by 2025, corresponding to about 70, 000 tons of silicon-carbon negative electrode demand; and for power silicon-carbon negative electrode, the permeability of silicon-carbon negative electrode in cylindrical power battery and square power battery is expected to reach 35% and 20% by 2025, corresponding to the demand of about 130000 tons of silicon-carbon negative electrode.