POSCO Future M Agrees to Long-Term LFP Cathode Supply With South Korean Battery Maker

As the traditional "September-October peak season" for auto sales is about to begin, NEV and other demand continues to increase, coupled with the rapid expansion of the energy storage industry, the supply-demand pattern of the upstream lithium carbonate market is ushering in critical changes. According to a China Securities research report, as the demand peak season in H2 2026 arrives, the lithium carbonate supply deficit is expected to gradually widen, peaking in Q4. If early stockpiling by the industry chain is considered, the price peak for the year may occur between the end of Q3 and the beginning of Q4.

[SMM Analysis] This week, the energy storage battery cell market remained stable overall. The pullback in lithium chemical prices has not yet significantly transmitted to the battery cell side, and only some orders adopting a raw material linkage mechanism saw slight downward adjustments. The average price of 314 Ah battery cells remained around 0.365 Yuan/Wh. As the implementation details of the battery consumption tax have not yet been released, most battery cell enterprises have not yet uniformly raised prices. The additional tax costs may be shared through negotiation between upstream and downstream players in the industry chain. In terms of product structure, in H1, shipments of large-capacity battery cells above 500 Ah reached approximately 42 GWh, accounting for 8.6%. The market is still dominated by deliveries of 314 Ah products. As large battery cell capacity is gradually released in H2, the shipment share of these cells is expected to increase to around 15%.