【SMM Analysis】A Review of the Price Trend of Waste Batteries for Cascade Utilization This Week (April 28-30, 2025)

Published: Apr 30, 2025 19:47

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[SMM Analysis: A Review of This Week's Cascade Price Trends] This week, prices in the cascade utilization market dropped slightly overall, but the decline was limited, with the market primarily adopting a wait-and-see attitude. Affected by global tariff policies, the demand for overseas export projects has been impacted to some extent. However, due to the relatively low market share of the US battery cell market, the overall prices of battery cells and lithium chemicals have remained stable. Nevertheless, due to the pessimistic outlook for the future prices of lithium chemicals, cascade utilization enterprises have not rushed to make purchases at this time, instead adopting a wait-and-see attitude and making just-in-time procurement. Meanwhile, upstream battery cell manufacturers and traders have maintained their quotes, resulting in the overall stability of prices in the cascade B-grade market this week. In terms of supply, although battery cell production has been somewhat affected by exports, there have been no significant fluctuations. Domestic battery replacement projects and other activities are proceeding normally, and the supply of waste battery cells for cascade utilization remains sufficient relative to demand. On the demand side, as cascade utilization enterprises primarily target the domestic market, their production plans remain generally stable, with no significant changes in downstream demand. The overall supply-demand pattern remains unchanged. In the short term, some cascade utilization producers, anticipating further price declines, continue to focus on just-in-time procurement. Prices are expected to remain stable or experience a slight decline.

SMM, April 30:

This week, prices in the cascade utilization market dropped slightly overall, but the decline was limited, and the market remained largely cautious. Affected by global tariff policies, the demand for overseas export projects was impacted to some extent. However, as the US battery cell market share is not high, the overall prices of battery cells and lithium chemicals remained stable. Due to pessimistic expectations about the future prices of lithium chemicals, cascade utilization enterprises did not rush to make purchases at this time, instead adopting a wait-and-see attitude and making just-in-time procurement. Meanwhile, upstream battery cell manufacturers and traders maintained their quotes, keeping the overall prices of Grade B products in the cascade utilization market stable this week. In terms of supply, although battery cell production was somewhat affected by exports, there were no significant fluctuations. Domestic battery replacement projects proceeded normally, and the supply of waste battery cells for cascade utilization remained sufficient relative to demand. On the demand side, as cascade utilization enterprises mainly target the domestic market, their production plans remained generally stable, and there were no significant changes in downstream demand. The overall supply-demand pattern remained unchanged. In the short term, some cascade utilization producers, anticipating further price declines, continued to focus on just-in-time procurement. Prices are expected to remain stable or drop slightly.

SMM New Energy Research Team

Wang Cong 021-51666838

Ma Rui 021-51595780

Feng Disheng 021-51666714

Lv Yanlin 021-20707875

Liu Yujun 021-20707895

Yu Xiaodan 021-20707870

Zhou Zhicheng 021-51666711

Zhang He 021-20707850

Data Source Statement: Except for publicly available information, all other data are processed by SMM based on publicly available information, market communication, and relying on SMM's internal database model. They are for reference only and do not constitute decision-making recommendations.

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