Since Glencore, a commodity giant, announced the closure of mutanda, a large copper cobalt mine, cobalt prices have quickly rebounded to the bottom, rising from 210000-220000 yuan / ton in late July to nearly 300000 yuan / ton at present. As an important raw material in the battery industry chain, the lithium price often associated with cobalt is still low. However, many small metal researchers believe that the price of lithium is expected to bottom in the near future.

The latest quotation of Shanghai Nonferrous Metals network on September 27 showed that the price of electrolytic cobalt, which has been stable for a period of time, increased by another 5000 yuan / ton to 290000 yuan / ton on the same day, and the prices of cobalt products such as cobalt sulfate and cobalt oxide have also increased slightly across the board recently. According to the data of business agency, the reference price of electrolytic cobalt recently reached 304300 yuan / ton, up 14.27% from September 1.

Overseas cobalt prices are also rising. Recently, the quotation of MB (British metal Herald) standard grade cobalt and alloy grade cobalt has remained at $17.4-18.1/lb and $17.7-18.5/lb respectively, and the price has continued to rise steadily. Small metal analysts believe that cobalt prices at home and abroad continue to rise, and this round of increase is higher than expected. Coupled with favorable factors such as the peak consumption season from September to October and financial policies, the price of cobalt products has a certain support, and there is still room for a slight increase in the later period.

The latest quotations of industrial grade lithium carbonate and battery grade lithium carbonate are 51500 yuan / ton and 60500 yuan / ton respectively. Although the rapid decline period has passed, the price still shows no signs of improvement.

Previously, the market view generally believed that the price of lithium carbonate soared four times from the low price of 40000 yuan / ton in 2015, causing the rapid expansion of lithium carbonate production capacity at home and abroad, and then causing the imbalance between supply and demand.

However, according to the latest view of Everbright Securities research team, the supply of lithium carbonate has not increased beyond expectations. Due to the rapid decline in the price of lithium carbonate, the production speed of some capacity may be lower than expected. The price of lithium salt mainly depends on the increase in demand. According to the survey, the current order situation of mainstream lithium salt enterprises is not pessimistic, and customers are gradually increasing. On the one hand, the traditional consumption peak season is coming, on the other hand, the demand for electric vehicles is increasing.

Article source:China battery network