With the Spring Festival holiday approaching, SMM investigated the holiday situation of lithium salt production enterprises. According to statistics, about half of the manufacturing enterprises will continue to produce normally, and the remaining enterprises have vacation plans ranging from one week to one month. According to a large lithium salt production plant, the main reason for its shutdown is to take advantage of the Spring Festival holidays for machine maintenance.
| Melamine |
In January, the lithium salt production enterprises basically maintained normal production until the end of the month, and the output did not change significantly compared with December. In February, due to the shutdown of some enterprises during the Spring Festival holidays, lithium carbonate production is expected to be 0.86 million tons, a 23.2% decrease in ring-to-ring ratio, and lithium hydroxide production is expected to be 0.42 million tons, a 34.3% decrease in ring-to-ring ratio.
According to lithium carbonate manufacturers, demand for lithium carbonate is good this week. Although there are few spot transactions, the demand of long-order customers is stable, and orders in February have basically been signed, and prices are expected to remain stable in the near future. Qinghai’s industrial-grade lithium carbonate production enterprises revealed that the logistics in Qinghai is expected to be out of service around January 20, so this week they are actively shipping, with almost no inventory. The downstream cathode material manufacturers also indicated that the upstream lithium carbonate supply was slightly tight.
| Bacillus thuringiensis |
Compared with lithium carbonate, the market for lithium hydroxide is slightly bleak – unlike lithium carbonate sales, lithium hydroxide has fewer transactions and lower prices than before, according to some companies that produce and sell lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide. At present, the price of industrial lithium hydroxide is about 80,000 yuan/ton, the price of battery-grade coarse lithium hydroxide is about 100,000 yuan/ton, and the price of battery-grade fine lithium hydroxide is about 110,000 yuan/ton.
We believe that there are two reasons for the recent decline in the price of lithium hydroxide: 1) Battery grade lithium hydroxide is currently mostly used in 622 ternary materials, and the demand for high nickel ternary materials is not yet in the beginning. In the demand of lithium salt for 622 ternary materials, lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide are substitutes for each other. Because battery-grade lithium carbonate and battery-grade lithium hydroxide have had premiums since last year, downstream cathode material manufacturers are considering costs, reducing the use of battery-grade lithium hydroxide. 2) The new production capacity of upstream lithium hydroxide enterprises has a great impact on the supply and demand of lithium hydroxide.
| Sodium Molybdate |