【SMM analysis】This Week's Recycling Market: LFP Black Mass Prices Begin to Rise (2025.10.20-2025.10.23)

This week, prices of salt products like cobalt sulfate and nickel sulfate continued to climb, while lithium carbonate prices also started to increase due to solid demand and other fundamental factors. Driven by the rise in cobalt salts, the discount coefficients for ternary and lithium cobalt oxide (LCO) black mass saw slight increases. However, as the pace of the cobalt price increase slowed, the rise in discount coefficients for cobalt and lithium also gradually moderated.

Regarding lithium iron phosphate (LFP) black mass, the price per lithium point rose this week in tandem with lithium salt prices. Taking LFP electrode black mass as an example, the current price ranges from 2,700 to 2,900 CNY per lithium point, up by 75 CNY per lithium point compared to last week. For ternary black mass, the current nickel-cobalt coefficient for ternary electrode black mass stands at 74-76%, unchanged from the previous week, while the lithium coefficient has increased to 70-73%.

On the profitability front, producing lithium carbonate by externally sourcing LFP black mass continues to incur losses, with profit margins between -5% and -6%. Apart from several newly operational LFP wet-process plants this year, most LFP recycling enterprises have production lines capable of using other raw materials to produce lithium carbonate. Consequently, even with some improvement in lithium carbonate prices, most companies choose to halt procurement and production when facing losses.

The situation is similar in the ternary wet-process sector, where profits generally hover around 1-3%. In the LCO wet-process sector, sustained rising cobalt prices have driven up the cobalt coefficients for upstream and downstream recycling companies, leading to a current decline in profits to around 1-3%.

On the supply side, following the price increases for nickel, cobalt, and lithium, upstream recyclers have quickly raised prices for batteries, electrode sheets (like LCO and LFP), and black mass has also seen some price increases. However, most companies, facing inverted profits, are adopting a wait-and-see approach, with many LFP wet-process plants maintaining OEM production for Business clients.