1、 Price trend
As of September 14th, the price of power type premium lithium iron phosphate is 56666 yuan/ton, with limited overall fluctuations. Trading in the spot market is biased towards demand, and at the beginning of the week, borrowing lithium carbonate to stabilize and rebound, coupled with expectations of the “Golden September” peak season, positive electrode manufacturers’ quotations have continued to rise; However, the follow-up of terminal demand fell short of expectations, coupled with a correction in lithium prices, resulting in a rapid decline in prices and a significant drop in spot quotes.
2、 Market analysis
In terms of operating rate: This week, new production capacity has been gradually put into operation with a small increase in supply, and the overall market supply is sufficient. In the early stage, low-priced stocking traders shipped at high prices, resulting in an increase in circulating supply and a sharp differentiation in operating rate. Leading integrated enterprises such as Hunan Yuneng and Defang Nano have operating rates of 95% -100%, with full production and sales, and delivery cycles compressed to within 7 days. Small and medium-sized factories lack high-end high-pressure real production capacity, and operating rates are generally less than 50%. Some have entered production reduction or shutdown. The industry’s total caliber is based on an average capacity utilization rate of about 75% in the first half of the year, but CITIC Construction Investment estimates that the industry’s average operating rate in July was about 90%
In terms of cost, the lithium carbonate market showed a significant decline in early September, with the benchmark price of battery grade lithium carbonate dropping from 156000 yuan/ton at the beginning of the month to 143000 yuan/ton on September 7th (-8.3%), with a maximum daily drop of 7000 yuan/ton; The main futures contract fluctuated downward this week, falling from 142000 yuan/ton on Monday to 134800 yuan/ton on Friday, with a weekly decline of about 5%. It briefly fell to around 128000 yuan/ton during trading.
In terms of demand, the total demand is still growing, but the short-term pace is not as expected by the market. Power batteries: In the first half of the year, 335.6 GWh (+12%) of domestic power batteries were installed, including 272 GWh of lithium iron phosphate, accounting for 81%; The demand on the automotive side has shifted from “competing for scale” to “competing for quality”, with more incremental growth coming from commercial vehicles and exports, energy storage (core engines). In the first half of the year, domestic shipments of energy storage lithium batteries were about 485GWh, with a year-on-year increase of over 80%; However, in recent times, the bidding pace for large storage vehicles in China has been slow, and overseas orders have been released slowly. Short term consumption is limited, and the overall vehicle procurement strategy is still based on on-demand procurement. New energy vehicle manufacturers have not started large-scale stocking, and their acceptance of high-level raw materials is limited.
3、 Future forecast
Analysts believe that in the short term (late September to October): pre holiday stocking provides a bottom line, while ordinary materials are still under pressure. Prices are expected to fluctuate between 54000-58000 yuan/ton for power type and 53000-56000 yuan/ton for energy storage type. After the Mid Autumn Festival and National Day stocking ends, if the energy storage production schedule falls short of expectations, there is still a slight downward space for ordinary second/third generation materials.
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