In the first half of the year, the investment has exceeded 30 billion yuan to expand the production of lithium copper foil.

The lithium copper foil industry is speeding up to enter the cycle of investment and expansion. Recently, Nord shares disclosed a plan to raise no more than 2.288 billion yuan, which will be used for projects such as 15000 tons of electrolytic copper foil for Qinghai high-performance and extremely thin lithium batteries and 12000 tons of electrolytic copper foil for Huizhou power batteries. Three months ago, the Huizhou United Copper foil Project of Nord Co., Ltd. just started, with a total investment of more than 1 billion yuan and a designed annual production capacity of 12900 tons.

In May alone, there were as many as four copper foil enterprises in a month. Hainan Zijing copper foil project with an annual output of 50, 000 tons is located in Qujing, Yunnan, with a total investment of 3.5 billion yuan, which will realize the mass production of 4.5 μ m products; Tongling non-ferrous metal has an annual production capacity of 20, 000 tons of ultra-thin electronic copper foil for high-precision energy storage; Longdian Huaxin has laid the foundation for the Nanjing project with a total investment of 10 billion yuan, which will build a regional headquarters base of 6-8 μ m lithium copper foil with an annual output of 50, 000 tons. LG Chemical announced that it will invest about 230 million yuan in China's Telford Technology to expand its production capacity, which will expand its annual production capacity from the current 49000 tons to 78000 tons next year.

Earlier, in March, Jiayuan Technology planned to invest about 1 billion yuan to increase the annual production of 16000 tons of high-performance electrolytic copper foil project, targeting high-performance extremely thin copper foil of 6 μ m or less; in January, it planned to raise 1.24 billion yuan for projects such as annual production of 15000 tons of high-performance copper foil. In February, Chaohua Science and Technology invested 12.26 billion yuan to build a copper foil industrial base in Yulin. After the project was put into production, the company's annual production capacity of copper foil can reach 160000 tons.

According to incomplete statistics of batteries in China, the amount of investment and expansion of lithium copper foil enterprises has exceeded 30 billion yuan since the beginning of this year, with a planned production capacity of more than 300000 tons.

Demand for more than 700000 tons of copper foil

Behind the intensive investment and expansion of copper foil enterprises is the strong demand brought by the battery end. Data show that China's shipments of lithium copper foil reached 146000 tons in 2020, an increase of 17.7 percent over the same period last year. In order to prepare for the TWh era, power battery companies have opened production expansion plans one after another, greatly improving the level of battery capacity, further driving the substantial growth of lithium copper foil market demand.

It is understood that Ningde Times has planned a production capacity of more than 400GWH, plus a joint venture with mainframe manufacturers to build a factory, a total planned production capacity of more than 550GWh. At present, Funeng Technology has more than 21GWH capacity to complete equipment installation, and its production capacity is expected to exceed that of 120GWh in 2025. Yiwei Lithium Energy previously planned to increase the power battery production capacity to 50GWhh by 2021, and recently planned to build an annual 100GWh project in Jingmen. The actual production capacity of AVIC Lithium Power in mass production, under construction and under construction this year has exceeded 100GWH, and the planned production capacity will exceed 300GWh by 2025. Guoxuan Hi-Tech expects production capacity to reach 28GWhh by the end of this year and to surpass 100GWh by 2025.

At present, the planned production capacity of these leading enterprises alone has exceeded that of 1200GWh. According to industry forecasts, the global demand for lithium copper foil will reach 768200 tons in 2025, with a compound growth rate of 29.3% from 2020 to 2025. Among them, the demand for 6 μ m copper foil will reach 366400 tons in 2025, with an average annual compound growth rate of 68.5%. In terms of amount, it is estimated that the global market space for lithium copper foil will reach 58 billion yuan in 2025, of which 6 μ m copper foil is expected to reach 30.4 billion yuan.

The short-term demand gap is difficult to make up.

From the supply side, industry data show that the world has a lithium copper foil production capacity of about 295000 tons in 2020, including about 153000 tons at home and 140000 tons overseas. The industry estimates that the global lithium copper foil production capacity will be about 360000 tons in 2021, including about 190000 tons in China and 170000 tons overseas.

At present, the thickness of copper foil in the mainstream of the industry has been reduced from 8 μ m to 6 μ m. For power batteries, on the one hand, 6 μ m lithium copper foil has higher energy density, better physical properties and more stable chemical properties than 8 μ m; on the other hand, it can better meet the needs of head battery manufacturers to seek differentiation and competitiveness.

In terms of market application, the leading "Big Brother" Ningde era began the switching of 6 μ m copper foil as early as three years ago, and at present it has achieved more than 90% permeability; at the same time, BYD, Yiwei LiNeng, Guoxuan Hi-Tech, Lishen Battery and other domestic battery manufacturers are actively introducing 6 μ m copper foil, and the domestic 6 μ m copper foil permeability is expected to be further improved.

According to the research and analysis data of Bank of China Securities, at present, the production capacity of 6 μ m copper foil is mainly concentrated in China. It is estimated that from 2021 to 2022, the effective production capacity of 6 μ m copper foil is 69000 tons and 90, 000 tons respectively, and the gap between supply and demand is 6200 tons and 16300 tons respectively.

It is understood that at present, there are not many domestic manufacturers with 6 μ m copper foil production technology. At present, it is mainly concentrated in a small number of manufacturers, such as Nord shares, Jiayuan Technology, Copper Guan Copper foil, Chaohua Technology and so on. In addition, Longdian Huaxin, Telford Technology, Zhongyi Science and Technology, Huawei Copper foil and other enterprises also began mass production.

It is worth noting that although domestic lithium copper foil enterprises are adding code to expand production capacity, the production cycle of lithium copper foil is generally as long as two or three years, and factors such as core equipment and process accumulation are still the main factors leading to slow capacity release. in the short term, the demand gap of high-end lithium copper foil is expected to be difficult to make up.

"the capacity expansion of the copper foil industry is relatively slow, such as the annual production capacity of 10,000 tons of copper foil, the construction period is as long as 16 months, and it takes more than 15 months for products to enter the supply chain of downstream battery enterprises. in other words, the 10,000-ton capacity of copper foil needs 3 years from construction to production, which is obviously slower than the expansion speed of downstream batteries." Industry insiders analyzed.