Cobalt Lithium New Year Adventures Start How to Receive a Battery Factory

According to corporate feedback, battery-grade lithium carbonate has risen from 15-155,000/ton to 15.5-16 million/ton since the beginning of the year, while lithium cobaltate has risen from 43-440,000/ton to 4.6-470,000/ton.

This situation can not help but remind people of the wave of rising prices after the Spring Festival last year: electrolytic cobalt from 270,000 / ton all the way soared to 375,000 / ton, that rising curve, steeper than Mount Everest.

So, is the current trend of this wave to replicate the market last year? Looking at it now, it's hard!

First of all, the premise of last year's price increase is that the price of cobalt has been pushed up for a whole year in 2016, and the cobalt price in 2016 is at a historical low. It has not entered the slow rise channel until the end of 2016. After the Spring Festival in 2017, with the support of high energy density policy, the long-standing cobalt price ushered in a retaliatory rise and rose to a higher price in a very short period of time.

The facts also prove that after this wave of price increases, the price of cobalt throughout 2017 is relatively stable. The current price increase of this cobalt is also driven by December 2017. The cause is that the market subsidies for new energy vehicles will further favor high-energy density batteries, which means that ternary materials will continue to be heated. Hold.

The same as last year, the demand side has expanded significantly and the market is positive; however, it should be noted that as of February 2018, the entire market is not at the same price level as the beginning of 2017.

Compared with the same period of last year, the current ternary materials and lithium carbonate have increased by 30-50% compared with last year, while the price of power battery packs has dropped by 20%. The cost has risen and the selling price has fallen. The profit of power battery companies has not been as good as before. Can you still accept the random increase of raw material manufacturers? I find it hard.

In fact, this wave of price increases, lithium carbonate enterprises and ternary materials companies are not much more certain, the price increase is more to try to test the market reaction. The company said that there were not many transactions just after the end of the year, and more were still on the order of the previous year.

Xinyi Information believes that the rise and fall of product prices reflects the rebalancing of supply and demand. In the market that has not yet fully started, the price increase of raw material enterprises is more of an expectation for the future. Whether it can form a rising trend depends on the acceptance of the battery factory. Against the backdrop of a sharp decline in subsidies for new energy vehicles, the price drop of power batteries will be inevitable in 2018. Under the premise that profits are difficult to guarantee, it may not be easy for battery manufacturers to accept raw material price increases. The “game” between raw material companies and battery manufacturers will continue in the short term.