On the evening of April 14, Hanrui Cobalt (300618) disclosed its annual report that operating income in 2021 was 4.35 billion yuan, an increase of 93% over the same period last year; net profit was 663 million yuan, an increase of 98.25% over the same period last year; and basic earnings per share was 2.15 yuan. The company plans to pay a cash dividend of 4.30 yuan (including tax) for every 10 shares.
Hanrui Cobalt Industry is mainly engaged in the research and development, production and sales of metal cobalt powder and other cobalt products and copper products. It has a strong ability of independent research and development and innovation, and has its own international brand. With cobalt products as the core and copper products as the supplement, the company has formed a complete industrial process from the development and acquisition of raw materials cobalt ore, to the processing and smelting of cobalt ore, to cobalt intermediate products and cobalt powder. It is one of the few enterprises with a complete industrial chain of non-ferrous metal cobalt in China.
In 2021, the operating income of cold cobalt products was 2.562 billion yuan (accounting for 58.91% of the operating income), an increase of 125.67% over the same period last year, and the sales volume of cobalt products increased by 38.08% over the same period last year. Copper products achieved operating income of 1.778 billion yuan (accounting for 40.87% of operating income), an increase of 59.83% over the same period last year, and copper product sales increased by 26.64% over the same period last year.
Cold Cobalt Industry in the annual report analysis said that cobalt is an important strategic material, is a non-renewable resources, its mineral resources are mostly distributed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Australia, Cuba and other places. China is a big consumer of cobalt, but it is lack of cobalt resources and mainly depends on imports from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). According to the US Geological Survey, the global recoverable cobalt reserves are about 7.6 million metal tons in 2021. Cobalt reserves are highly concentrated in a small number of countries, of which the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has reserves of 3.5 million metal tons, accounting for 46 per cent of global reserves, ranking first in the world. Australia has reserves of 1.4 million tons, accounting for 18 per cent of global reserves, and the top two largest reserves account for nearly 70 per cent. Global refined cobalt production in 2021 was 154000 tons of metal, up 12.7 per cent from a year earlier and a compound growth rate of 5.45 per cent from 2015 to 2021, according to Sipp. The concentration of global primary cobalt supply is high, with 69.3 per cent of output in the first three countries in 2015 and 78.8 per cent in 2021.
The downstream demand of cobalt is mainly consumer battery, power battery, superalloy, cemented carbide, other batteries, catalysts, magnetic materials, dyes and so on. At present, the demand for cobalt is mainly concentrated in the fields of consumer batteries and power batteries, such as consumer battery cathode LCO and power battery ternary positive battery. In 2021, the global consumption battery demand for cobalt is about 60, 000 metal tons, accounting for 36.6%. The demand for cobalt for power battery is about 34000 metal tons, accounting for 20.6%. The two major fields account for more than 57%. The other two major fields are superalloy and cemented carbide. The proportion in 2021 is 10.7% and 7.2% respectively.
According to the annual report, in terms of customers, Hanrui Cobalt Industry already has a downstream customer base, including Korean TaeguTec, German Betek-Simon, Israel Iscar, German E6, IMC International Metals (Dalian), Zigong cemented Carbide, Xiamen Tungsten Industry and other Chinese and foreign first-class enterprises.
In terms of production capacity, in 2021, in order to optimize the product structure, increase the company's efficiency and safeguard the interests of all shareholders, Hanrui Cobalt Industry transformed the "5000 tons of cobalt electrodeposition" production line into the "6000 tons of electrowinning copper" production line in the fund-raising investment project. It has been put into production at the end of 2021. At the same time, cobalt precipitation, pressure filtration, flash and other processes are added to the original production line to be converted into a "5000 tons of cobalt hydroxide" production line, which is expected to be put into production in the second quarter of 2022. The subsidiary Anhui Hanrui has an annual output of 5000 tons of metal cobalt powder production line technical transformation and expansion project, has been officially put into production in January 2022. The subsidiary Ganzhou Hanrui has comprehensively refined the progress of the project, the first phase of the infrastructure project has been basically completed, equipment installation is under way and is expected to be put into production by the end of June 2022.
Hanrui Cobalt said that in 2022, it will make every effort to promote the acquisition and acquisition of upstream new energy material mine resources, the construction of battery recycling production line and the construction of ternary precursor projects. strive to open up the industrial chain of resource development, new energy material manufacturing and resource recovery in the new energy business, and further enhance the company's competitiveness.
