SMM, April 18: the average spot price of domestic battery-grade lithium carbonate has been falling since April 8, setting a six-day decline rarely seen since 2021, according to SMM spot quotes. Today, the average price of domestic battery-grade lithium carbonate fell again. After a drop of 1500 yuan / ton, the average spot price of domestic battery-grade lithium carbonate reached 492500 yuan / ton, down 10,000 yuan / ton from the previous high, or 2.03%.

"Click to view the spot market of SMM new energy products.

Domestic battery-grade lithium hydroxide, which maintained price stability during the downward price of lithium carbonate, also ushered in its second consecutive trading day of decline today. According to the spot quotation of SMM, the average price of domestic battery-grade lithium hydroxide fell 1000 yuan / ton to 490000 yuan / ton.

The biggest drop today is lithium hexafluorophosphate. SMM quotation shows that the spot price of lithium hexafluorophosphate fell 8000 yuan / ton to 470500 yuan / ton, which is close to the price of 470000. Today, the price of lithium hexafluorophosphate fell for the ninth consecutive trading day after the opening of the downward channel on April 6, down 54500 yuan / ton from the previous price of 525000 yuan / ton, or 10.38%.

Specifically, for the reasons for the recent downward price of lithium carbonate, SMM research shows that the quotation attitude of large upstream manufacturers is loose, but the range of price adjustment is still limited, some small and medium-sized manufacturers have a positive shipping attitude, transactions and quotations are significantly reduced, but only a small amount of shipments. At present, the overall lithium carbonate market price trading range widened, although the upstream and downstream game state is maintained, but in the case of obvious weakening demand, the price support has been obviously insufficient.

As for lithium hydroxide, it is mainly affected by the downward price of lithium carbonate and the continuous weakening of procurement demand downstream due to epidemic control, resulting in a slight decline in prices. SMM expects that lithium hydroxide prices may continue to decline slightly at a later stage due to the impact of the above two factors.

As for lithium hexafluorophosphate, according to SMM research, part of the production capacity of lithium hexafluorophosphate related enterprises has been continuously released recently, and the supply has been increased, which in turn leads to the downward quotation of lithium hexafluorophosphate. "Click to view details

It is worth mentioning that SMM last week investigated the impact of the epidemic on the lithium industry chain and found that the impact of this menacing epidemic on the lithium industry chain may be far greater than expected. Affected by the reduction and suspension of production by car enterprises in Shanghai and surrounding areas, SMM expects that the downstream market will be affected by 15% and 20% in April, and the amount of battery purchases will also decline accordingly. It is expected that the amount of materials purchased by battery enterprises as a whole will decline by more than 15% from April to May. Taking into account the current lithium supply month-on-month increase, and demand downward space, lithium salt market supply and demand structure reversal, lithium price decline has become a foregone conclusion.

However, recently, under a series of operations such as the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology sending a working group to Shanghai and concentrating resources to give priority to ensuring the resumption of work and production of enterprises in key industries such as automobile manufacturing, Tesla (Shanghai), an electric car giant, as an enterprise that must resume work and stop production on the key list, has begun to actively prepare for resumption of work and production; in addition, SAIC Group also started a stress test of resumption of production today, actively preparing to enter the stage of resumption of production.

SMM is also collecting the recent progress of enterprises in Shanghai that have been shut down by the epidemic and are ready to resume production.