High nickel material power lithium battery -Lithium - Ion Battery Equipment
Large increase in sales of new energy passenger vehicles boosts cobalt demand
As far as the reasons for the rise in cobalt prices are concerned, the outbreak of global new energy vehicles has become the main driving factor.
Analysts believe that since the second half of 2016, with the rapid development of global electric vehicles, cobalt used in ternary batteries has become the fastest growing and largest demand area for cobalt in the future, and cobalt has gradually entered another big cycle.
The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (“CAAM”) recently released data on automobile production and sales in March. In March, the sales performance of new energy vehicles was still eye-catching, with sales reaching 68,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 117.4%.
Among these newly added new energy vehicles, passenger cars that require higher energy density of power batteries occupy the absolute mainstream, which further increases the demand for cobalt materials.
In fact, since the outbreak of the new energy vehicle market, especially the passenger car market, the supply has been insufficient in the past two years. Entering the short supply due to growing demand. On the other hand, the uncertainty of the DRC government policy (the new mining law) and the unstable local situation are bound to bring more disturbances to the supply of cobalt materials.
In this regard, Sun Yonggang, deputy secretary-general of the Cobalt Branch of the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association, analyzed that the rise in cobalt prices was basically within expectations. China is a cobalt-poor country with over 90% import dependence. Rising raw material costs are a factor driving prices up. In addition, the new energy power battery industry is booming and rising, and the increase in demand is also the common expectation of the entire industry chain. As a result, the prices of raw material products have risen rapidly, which is also in line with the rhythm of smelting enterprises to control the shipment of precious metals, thereby promoting the rise in cobalt prices.
On the other hand, due to the introduction of the sticker policy that has raised the energy density threshold of power batteries, ternary power batteries will become the main choice for electric passenger vehicles, and ternary materials have eroded the original lithium iron phosphate passenger vehicle market. This has largely contributed to the surge in demand for cobalt.
Reducing the trend of ternary with high cobalt content and nickel
With the continuous rise of cobalt prices, under the circumstance that the market supply of total cobalt ore production is limited, the power battery material structure is bound to undergo new changes.
In order to solve the problem of rising costs, power batteries are being promoted to high energy density products. The practice of the battery cell factory is to actively apply positive electrode materials such as nickel-manganese-cobalt and nickel-cobalt-aluminum to increase the use of nickel metal, so that the proportion of cobalt metal will gradually decrease.
This trend can also be seen from the shipments of cathode material companies.
Recently, Dangsheng Technology recently released its annual report. The company's net profit in 2017 was 250 million, a year-on-year increase of 151.97%. In its announcement, it was disclosed that due to the increase in the price of cathode materials benefiting from the increase in the price of upstream cobalt and lithium resources, the shipment volume of cathode materials increased by 21.7% year-on-year to 9,800 tons.
Due to the influence of the rising cobalt price, Dangsheng Technology is still in the annual report summary and disclosure, in 2017, it is mainly based on ternary 532. It is expected that the company will ship about 1,000 tons of high nickel ternary in 2017, accounting for 10%.
With the trend of high nickel ternary, Dangsheng Technology said that the 811 positive electrode will be mass-produced this year, the customer expansion is smooth, and the follow-up potential is great.