■Affected by the epidemic, LG Chemical and Samsung SDI have announced the closure of their power battery plant in Michigan, the United States, until April 13. A few days ago, Panasonic suspended the production of its Nevada super battery factory to prevent the spread of the epidemic.

Senior engineer comments:It is unlikely that the epidemic will end in the first half of the year. From the most upstream mineral materials to the most downstream auto enterprises, they have been forced to stop production.

At the lithium resource end, 50% of the supply comes from lithium mines in Australia and 40% from salt lakes in South America. At present, Australia is closed, Argentina has entered a compulsory quarantine state, and Argentine Salt Lake giants Livent and orocobre have suspended production.

Although the supply of cobalt has not been affected for the time being, the spread of the epidemic in Africa may become a new hidden danger, which will affect the supply of cobalt once it is affected.

At the downstream auto enterprise end, all North American assembly plants of Ford, general motors and Fiat Chrysler, the three American giants, will be temporarily closed, and the two Tesla plants will be closed. European car companies including BMW, Volkswagen, Daimler, PSA and Renault have all stopped production.

Short term shutdown is acceptable, but if the epidemic cannot be ended before June, the subsequent recovery of the industrial chain will inevitably be "traumatic".

■In the first quarter of 2020, there were about 30 production expansion projects in the domestic lithium battery industry chain, with an investment amount of more than 185billion yuan, of which the total capacity of the lithium battery field exceeded 100GWh.

Senior engineer comments:In the new wave of lithium battery expansion, it is obvious that there will be more non vehicle batteries: Yiwei lithium energy will expand the production of TWS batteries; Xinwangda newly built 3C battery project; The base station energy storage battery jointly invested by GCL and Guoneng; Tianfeng power gave up big power and switched to two wheeled vehicle batteries.

From another point of view, lithium batteries are penetrating into more and more fields that can be driven by electricity with the momentum of "a little fluorescent light and scattered stars".

So don't be pessimistic. The lithium battery performance may just begin.

■Shanshan shares announced that its holding subsidiary Shanshan energy plans to purchase ternary precursors from evergreen new energy by April 30, and the transaction amount is expected to be less than 200million yuan.View the original text

Senior engineer comments:The deep integration of cathode material enterprises and recycling is of great significance. Up to now, Huayou (BAMO), Xiamen tungsten, Bangpu and greenmei have all been involved, and meimeike and BASF in foreign enterprises have also made substantive actions.

Shanshan appears to be listed to serve Geely, but it is also improving its territory.

Evergreen new energy will recycle the waste battery packs provided by Geely, from which valuable cobalt, lithium and other materials will be recovered. In addition, the cobalt resources provided by Zijin mining industry will produce ternary precursors, which will be handed over to Shanshan energy to make cathode materials, and finally supplied to Geely's power battery factory.

■In 2019, the revenue of cobalt products of Hanrui cobalt industry was 1.36 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 45%, and the gross profit margin was only 5.1%, a year-on-year decrease of 42.6%.

Senior engineer comments:Cobalt enterprises are going to say goodbye to the era of "waiting for price and cobalt".

On the supply side, mutanda has stopped production, DRC mining has significantly reduced production, most of Glencore's production has been locked in downstream long orders, and the spot market is expected to remain tight.

On March 24, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) declared a state of emergency, South Africa announced a national blockade for 21 days on the evening of March 23, and Lusaka, Zambia, announced that all cross-border cargo transportation would be suspended from March 27. In this way, there may be some supply pressure in the short term.

From the consumer side, in the 3C sector, global smartphone shipments fell 38% year-on-year to 62million units in February this year; Sales fell 39% year-on-year to 65million units. With the spread of overseas epidemic, the terminal demand is not optimistic.

In the field of electric vehicles, high nickel and low cobalt is becoming a trend, and the proportion of recovered cobalt is also increasing. The medium and long-term demand tends to be stable as a whole.

Article source:High tech lithium power grid