The Ningde era "snatched food from the tiger's mouth"! The 200 billion Lithium King world-class project has been warmed up again by the battle for Huhu Lithium Mine.

SMM September 30th: today, Ganfeng Lithium announced that it had agreed to a wholly-owned subsidiary Ganfeng International or its wholly-owned subsidiary to bid for Canada's Millennial Lithium Corp for no more than C $353 million on July 16, 2021. Ganfeng International recently explained that because Millennial received a "better offer" from its offer competitors and Ganfeng International did not choose to raise the offer price within the agreed time limit, Millennial has unilaterally suspended its previous tender offer cooperation agreement with Ganfeng International and paid a contract termination fee of $10 million to Ganfeng International. This incident will not affect the day-to-day operation of the follow-up company.

It is reported that Ganfeng Lithium was the first Chinese company to make a bid for Millennial, but on Sept. 8, Millennial disclosed that Ningde Times had offered C $3.85 a share, which was higher than the C $3.60 per share offer made by Ganfeng Lithium in July. Millennial considered the Ningde era offer to be more advantageous. To this end, Millennial also informed Ganfeng Lithium that it could revise the previous agreement before September 27, but after careful consideration, Ganfeng Lithium decided not to raise its offer and eventually missed out with Millennial.

200 billion Lithium King is snatched to eat lithium mine "battle" heats up again

China is a large country in demand for lithium resources, but lithium reserves account for only 7% of the world's lithium reserves, with a total of no more than 1.5 million tons, so it is highly dependent on overseas lithium resources, up to 70%. Therefore, domestic lithium resources have been in short supply.

In this era of "ore is king", in order to deal with the impact of skyrocketing raw material prices, many middle and lower reaches enterprises have begun to layout upstream lithium ore resources. Ganfeng Lithium Industry recently said on the interactive platform that it has deployed lithium resources in China, Argentina, Mexico and other regions, while the Ningde era of Ganfeng Lithium Industry, the "cut Hu" Ganfeng Lithium Industry, also acquired shares in lithium mining company Neo lithium, North American nickel (North American Nickel) and Australia's Pilbara Minerals before acquiring Millennial.

On Sept. 27, Suzhou Tianhua Times, a Ningde time shareholding company, invested $240 million in Manono, a lithium project of Australian mineral exploration company AVZ Minerals. The Manono project is one of the hard rock lithium deposits with the largest reserves and the highest grade discovered at present, with proved resources up to 269 million tons and estimated lithium reserves up to 400 million tons.

China Gold Research News previously pointed out that lithium supply and demand from 2021 to 2025 is expected to gradually become scarce, and the fundamentals of the medium-and long-term lithium bull market are strong. Global lithium demand is expected to increase from 430000 tons in 2021 to 1.5 million tons of LCE in 2025.

The demand for power batteries skyrocketed and the prices of raw materials soared.

Under the beautiful vision of "carbon peak and carbon neutralization", the field of new energy vehicles is booming. According to the data previously released by the China Automobile Association, from January to August, the production and sales of new energy vehicles in China completed 1.813 million and 1.799 million respectively, an increase of 1.9 times compared with the same period last year. The cumulative sales penetration rate is close to 11%. Among them, the production and sales of new energy vehicles continued to set a new record in August, exceeding 300000 for the first time.

As the core of new energy vehicles, power battery is also the top priority of future development. According to data released by the China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance, from January to August, China's power battery production totaled 111.5 GWH, an increase of 201.0% over the same period last year, and vehicle loading totaled 76.3 GWH, an increase of 176.3% over the same period last year. The popularity of new energy vehicles and power batteries is evident.

In 2021, with the increasing popularity of lithium batteries and the shortage of lithium mineral resources, the price of raw materials for power batteries is rising rapidly. Take the recent average daily price increase of about 3000 yuan / ton of battery-grade lithium carbonate as an example. The historical price of SMM shows that as of September 30, the price of domestic battery-grade lithium carbonate was 175,500,178,000 yuan / ton, with an average price of 176750 yuan / ton, up 123750 yuan / ton from the beginning of the year, an increase of 233.5%.

"Click to see more historical prices of SMM new energy products.

According to SMM, the price of lithium carbonate will continue to rise in the future. It is reported that since August, there has been a gap of about 14% in domestic lithium carbonate. In the medium to long term, SMM believes that the expansion of iron and lithium market in the second half of the year is obviously delayed, and the increase in demand is lower than expected, but the gas and electricity restrictions brought about by the fourth quarter may affect upstream production, and the supply and demand structure of lithium carbonate is expected to remain tense. "View details

Lithium power enterprises scramble to sprint the upward layout of enterprises in the middle and lower reaches of the Kechuang board.

According to SMM incomplete statistics, since Science and Technology Innovation Board opened the gate in July 2019, there have been a large number of lithium enterprises competing for listing. By 2020, more than 40 lithium enterprises sprint the gem, and 26 IPO, have successfully landed on the gem. In addition to the successful listing of Tianneng shares and Pai Neng Technology, AVIC Lithium, Honeycomb Energy, Fudi batteries and other companies have said they have listing plans.

In August 2021, a total of 38 power battery enterprises were installed in China's new energy vehicle market. The power battery loads of the top three, the top five and the top 10 power battery companies were 9.6GWh, 10.5GWh and 11.6GWH respectively, accounting for 76.3%, 83.9% and 92.7% of the total load, respectively. Among them, Ningde era still ranks first, followed by BYD, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, AVIC Lithium and so on.

And these domestic top power battery companies also inevitably embark on the road to the upstream distribution of lithium resources. Guoxuan Hi-Tech announced in March 2021 that it had set up a joint venture mining company with Yichun Mining Co., Ltd. to distribute upstream lithium ore resources for the first time. According to public data, Yichun City plans to produce more than 120000 tons of lithium carbonate per year, which can be used for 218GWh lithium iron phosphate batteries or 169GWh NCM ternary lithium batteries.

On September 12, Guoxuan Hi-Tech signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement with Jiangte Motor, which holds or controls more than 100 million tons of lithium ore resources, to cooperate in the field of battery-grade lithium carbonate and continue to deepen the distribution of its upstream lithium resources.

BYD also has the layout of lithium mines. As early as 2010, BYD spent 200 million yuan to acquire an 18% stake in Zabuye Lithium, a subsidiary of Tibet Mining Industry, while Yiwei LiNeng also acquired a stake in Dahua Chemical in order to win the mining rights in Da Chaidan Salt Lake and further grasp the upstream lithium resources.

Therefore, from the actions of the above enterprises, it is not difficult to see that the integration of lithium resources upstream has become a tacit "way to make money" for enterprises in the middle and lower reaches of the new energy industry chain. It is not difficult to understand why Ganfeng Lithium Industry's seemingly secure acquisition has been "cut off".