[SMM Weekly Review] This Week's Hydrometallurgy Recycling Market: Recycling Prices Held Steady, Market Largely Concluded Stockpiling (2026.1.26-2026.1.29)

SMM January 29 news:

Nickel sulphate prices held steady this week, while lithium carbonate prices oscillated.

This week, by ternary and LFP material types: LFP hydrometallurgical side, taking LFP pole piece black mass as an example, LFP pole piece black mass prices were 6,950-7,300 yuan/mtu, up slightly WoW. Due to lithium carbonate price fluctuations in recent days, overall LFP black mass price trend oscillated this week. As time entered the second half of January, most downstream LFP hydrometallurgical enterprises completed stockpiling in previous weeks, market transactions were very sluggish, with only a small amount of restocking. Taking ternary black mass as an example: ternary pole piece black mass nickel and cobalt payables were 78-80.5%, the discount coefficient flat WoW, while lithium payables were 78-80.5%. Currently, nickel, cobalt, and lithium payables are basically at the same discount. Although salt prices rose, black mass payables and black mass prices also increased simultaneously, so profits did not improve significantly compared to the rise.

SMM New Energy Research Team

Cong Wang 021-51666838

Rui Ma 021-51595780

Disheng Feng 021-51666714

Yanlin Lü 021-20707875

Zhicheng Zhou 021-51666711