[SMM Analysis] This Week’s Hydrometallurgy Recycling Market: Nickel, Cobalt, and Lithium Chemicals Prices Fluctuated; the Market Rebounded (2026.3.2-2026.3.5)

SMM News, March 5:

Raw material side, lithium carbonate and nickel sulphate prices fluctuated this week, while cobalt sulphate prices began to drop slightly after remaining stable for an extended period.

This week, by material type—ternary, LCO, and LFP—LFP hydrometallurgy: taking LFP pole piece black mass as an example, its current price was 6,400-6,800 yuan/mtu, with the transaction center rising slightly from last Thursday WoW. As time moved into early March, most LFP recycling enterprises had relatively small inventories after Chinese New Year and gradually resumed operations to stockpile after the Lantern Festival this week. With demand increasing and inventories tight, prices per % lithium for LFP black mass began to rise continuously. However, as lithium carbonate futures and spot prices declined at the beginning of the week, LFP black mass prices this week also saw a rise first and then a fall, though the overall transaction center still moved up; ternary and raw material side: similar to LFP hydrometallurgy enterprises, some ternary hydrometallurgy enterprises saw inventories consumed after Chinese New Year, but as nickel prices and cobalt prices changed relatively little, coupled with logistics inventories not fully recovering last week, transactions in the ternary and pure cobalt scrap market were very sluggish last week. This week, as logistics recovered and procurement demand gradually rebounded, nickel and cobalt payables for ternary pole piece black mass both rose slightly.

SMM New Energy Research Team

Wang Cong 021-51666838

Ma Rui 021-51595780

Feng Disheng 021-51666714

Lv Yanlin 021-20707875

Zhou Zhicheng 021-51666711