Looking at the world, the development of new energy vehicle market has accelerated in recent years, driven by the positive development of new energy vehiclesPower batteryDiaphragm demand is growing rapidly. According to Dongxing securities, the global demand for power battery diaphragms is expected to reach 3.046 billion, 3.844 billion and 4.669 billion square meters from 2020 to 2022, with year-on-year growth of 66.85%, 26.19% and 21.47% respectively. This brings huge market opportunities to domestic diaphragm enterprises.

Leading enterprises actively expand production

Although affected by the epidemic, this yearthe diaphragmThe enthusiasm of enterprises to invest and expand production remains unabated.

In April this year, Enjie Co., Ltd. issued the 2020 plan for non-public development of A-shares, which plans to raise no more than 5billion yuan for the first phase expansion project of lithium-ion battery diaphragm of Jiangxi Tongrui New Energy Technology Development Co., Ltd. and the second phase expansion project of Wuxi Enjie new material industrial base. The total investment of Jiangxi project is 1.75 billion yuan, and it is expected to add 400million square meters of lithium battery diaphragm capacity every year; With a total investment of 2.8 billion yuan, the Wuxi project is expected to increase the annual production capacity of 520million square meters of lithium battery diaphragm base film and 300million square meters of lithium battery coating film.

It is understood that in recent years, with the help of the capital market, Enjie has frequently expanded its production capacity. By the end of 2019, the wet diaphragm production capacity of Enjie has reached 2.3 billion square meters, and there are 30 wet base membrane production lines in Shanghai, Zhuhai, Jiangxi and Wuxi. Enjie Co., Ltd. predicts that the diaphragm capacity of the company will reach 2.9 billion square meters in 2020.

On March 27, putailai announced that the company plans to raise 4.95 billion yuan through non-public offering to invest in the construction of lithium-ion battery diaphragms, new coated diaphragms for power batteries and other projects. Putilai plans to build the "249million square meter annual lithium ion battery diaphragm project" and the "500000 square meter annual new coated diaphragm project for high safety power batteries" in Liyang, Jiangsu and Ningde, Fujian respectively.

According to putilai, the above two projects are to further lay out the base membrane capacity and stabilize the company's competitiveness in the diaphragm field while making corresponding capacity planning for the customer's capacity expansion plan. In addition, the "lithium battery diaphragm high-speed line R & D project" to be invested this time will help further improve the integrated production efficiency of the company's wet diaphragm products and reduce costs.

Industry analysis points out that the market concentration of the lithium battery industry is increasing day by day, and the first-class lithium battery production enterprises that occupy 80% of the market share at home and abroad have a huge capacity. Therefore, whether they have the supply capacity to match the needs of these battery enterprises will become their first choice when choosing diaphragm suppliers.

Increasing market concentration

Diaphragm is one of the four key materials of lithium battery, and it is also a material that started late in localization. However, the domestic diaphragm industry has developed rapidly in recent years. Liu Yanlong, Secretary General of China chemical and physical power industry association, said that at present, domestic diaphragm products have accounted for more than 90% of the domestic diaphragm market. In addition to continuously meeting the needs of domestic battery enterprises, many high-end products have been exported to LG, Panasonic and other foreign mainstream battery enterprises in large quantities.

The technical routes of lithium battery diaphragm include dry unidirectional stretching, dry bidirectional stretching and wet method. At present, most domestic production enterprises are moving forward with dry and wet methods. Among them, the capacity of Cangzhou Mingzhu wet diaphragm is 190million square meters, and the capacity of dry diaphragm is 100million square meters. Xingyuan material has dry process, wet process and coating diaphragm preparation technology. In 2019, its dry process project plans to build a new dry process diaphragm production capacity of 400million square meters per year, a wet process diaphragm project of 360million square meters per year for lithium-ion batteries, and a high-performance lithium-ion battery coating diaphragm project with an annual processing capacity of 1billion square meters.

Enjie Co., Ltd., a leading domestic enterprise, is mainly based on wet diaphragm, and its production capacity ranks first in the world. Although the price of diaphragm fell, the domestic market share of wet diaphragm as a whole was as high as 60% after Enjie's acquisition of Suzhou Jieli. At present, the development of wet diaphragm products of Enjie has reached more than 80 varieties, and the rich product categories can meet the different needs of customers. At present, Enjie has entered the supply chain of most battery manufacturers in the world, including Panasonic, LG, Ningde era and other leading battery enterprises in the world. At the same time, it has also become an indirect supplier of Tesla.

From the perspective of market pattern, with the intensification of industry competition in recent years, the industry reshuffle led to the withdrawal of backward production capacity, and the concentration of domestic diaphragm industry is getting higher and higher. It is understood that the gross profit of some diaphragm enterprises is still at a high level, but it has declined to varying degrees compared with previous years. Especially with the further decline of the average price of diaphragm and the further improvement of industry concentration, the performance of enterprises in the industry has been differentiated.

So far, many diaphragm manufacturers have released financial statements. According to the financial report released by Enjie, the company achieved a total operating income of 3.16 billion yuan in 2019, an increase of 28.57% year-on-year; The net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was 850million yuan, an increase of 63.92% year-on-year. As for the performance growth, Enjie said that the main reason was that the scale advantage of the company's wet lithium battery isolation membrane business was brought into play, combined with the influence of the company's internal fine management and active development of domestic and foreign markets, the output and sales of wet lithium battery isolation membrane continued to grow steadily, and the company's overall profit level was significantly improved.

In addition, Sinoma technology recently released the first quarter report of 2020. The company's first quarter operating revenue was 2.89 billion yuan, an increase of 8.68% year-on-year; The net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was 242 million yuan, an increase of 11.52% year-on-year. New era Securities said that the synergy between the company's original Sinoma lithium film and consolidated Hunan Sinoma lithium has basically turned losses in the first quarter of 2020, marking the accelerated arrival of the performance inflection point of the company's diaphragm sector.

However, not all enterprises have good performance. Recently, aerospace rainbow disclosed its 2019 annual report that the company achieved a main business income of 3.100 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 14.04%, and a net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies of 232 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 4.10%.

On April 20, the new third board diaphragm enterprise, newmi technology, disclosed its 2019 annual report. The company achieved a consolidated operating income of 137 million yuan, a decrease of 13.37% over the same period last year; The consolidated net profit was -221 million yuan, an increase of 50.69% over the same period last year. Newmi technology said that due to the continuous decline in market product prices, the sales revenue decreased; The net profit declined due to the unsaturated unit maintenance and production orders, the losses caused by the parking of Kunming newrice and Chongqing newrice, the failure of Kunming newrice production line to operate at full capacity, and the low utilization rate of production line equipment.

With the fierce competition in the lithium-ion battery diaphragm industry, the development space of lithium-ion battery diaphragm manufacturers that do not have the ability of independent R & D and design will gradually shrink. The competition in the domestic diaphragm industry will mainly focus on raw material formulation process, microporous preparation technology, complete equipment design ability, product quality and sales channels, with independent core technology The market share of lithium-ion battery diaphragm manufacturers with stable product quality and sales channels has increased steadily.

Industry analysts believe that the domestic battery diaphragm industry has begun to adjust and restructure, and the market shows a trend that the strong are stronger and the weak are out. The development of small and micro enterprises lacking technology, few brands and short funds is not optimistic, and the diaphragm industry will further accelerate the reshuffle in the future.

Article source:Lithium power grid