According to the data of Baichuan Fu Ying, by September 15, the average market price of domestic battery-grade lithium carbonate had reached 5 1 10,000 yuan/ton, up 2,000 yuan from the previous day, and the price was very close to the historical high point in March this year, when the average price was 510.7 million yuan/ton.
It should be pointed out that the above price samples are all weighted average prices, which are slightly lower than the actual transaction price in the market, while the batch price representing the latter market will be higher.
The price of lithium salt in salt lake exceeds 510.5 million yuan, and the price of some manufacturers reaches 510.7 million yuan, which is higher than the quotation of some lithium mining enterprises. Chen Yangyang, an analyst of Fu Bao Information Lithium Raw Materials Industry, said in June 14 that the reason was that the supply was tight and many people could not get the supply. For example, if the goods are delivered at 9: 00 a.m. and the payment is not made at 3: 00 p.m., then the goods are not yours.
Recently, this newspaper reported that the bulk market is mainly composed of lithium from Qinghai salt lakes such as Michelle, Zangge and Dongtai Jinaier, which can account for more than half of the domestic bulk market, and the other part comes from some small factories in China and a small amount of quasi-electric carbon in Jiangxi.
265438+20 th Century Business Herald reporter's investigation found that in addition to being controlled by the epidemic situation in Qinghai, the foreign transportation of lithium salt was affected to some extent. Because commodities cannot directly enter the hands of downstream manufacturers, they have to go through dealers, traders and other links, which makes the ex-factory price of products only increase by 470,000 yuan/ton, and finally pushes up the transaction price in the commodity market.
Judging from the price transmission chain of the current market, the rise of bulk prices further raises the average market price collected by quotation agencies and the ex-factory price of mainstream lithium salt factory products with reference to their prices.
Price transmission chain
Lithium carbonate is not a commodity, and its price formation mechanism is obviously different from that of copper, aluminum and other varieties.
For the latter, there is a unified and relatively authoritative reference in the world, that is, LME non-ferrous metal futures price. For the former, there is no authoritative price so far, and domestic lithium salt futures are still brewing.
To understand the rise of lithium price, we should first start with its price formation mechanism.
The market price of lithium salt is not transparent enough, but thanks to the existence of comprehensive quotation platform in the industry, sellers and investors can observe the continuous price trend.
As far as the lithium salt market is concerned, the mainstream quotation agencies in the current market include Asia Metal Network, Shanghai Nonferrous Metals, Baichuan Fu Ying and Antaike.
The quotations provided by the above-mentioned institutions are also quoted by the seller's institutions and listed companies, which can be seen from the seller's research report and the periodic reports of listed companies.
Due to the different sources of price collection and statistical methods, the specific prices of the above institutions are slightly different, but the trend of specific prices is the same.
On September 8th, for example, the price of battery-grade lithium carbonate produced in Shanghai was 494,000 yuan/ton, the price of Antaike was 496,000 yuan/ton, and the price of Baichuan Fu Ying was 50 1.000 yuan/ton, but they all rose sharply compared with August.
265438+20 th Century Business Herald reporter learned that there are two kinds of lithium salt factory shipments at present. One is to sign a long-term supply contract directly with the downstream, the quantity is not locked, and the price is adjusted with reference to the quotation of the above institutions. This is a long-term order, and the other is directly sold to the market, so the receiving party is more complicated, and there are downstream enterprises, distributors and traders. This is a loose order.
Different ways, the corresponding transaction price is also different, and the price of bulk orders is significantly higher.
On September 5, the quotation data provided by a downstream buyer showed that the actual transaction price had exceeded 500,000 yuan/ton, and the mainstream quotation reached 5 1 10,000 to 520,000 yuan.
The above prices are significantly higher than those quoted by Shanghai Nonferrous Metals and other institutions, and also significantly higher than the ex-factory price of manufacturers. Because the sales price of lithium carbonate publicly given by Salt Lake shares the day before was only 470,000 yuan/ton.
Downstream manufacturers who sign long-term contracts can even get goods at a price of 40,000 to 50,000 yuan per ton below the market price. Chen Yangyang said.
It can be seen that if the current market price is sorted from high to low, the order is the transaction price of bulk orders > the average price counted by quotation institutions > the ex-factory price of lithium salt enterprises > the receiving price of long-term orders downstream.
There is a certain relationship between the above prices, because the average price counted by the quotation agency will take into account the batch price representing the latest actual transaction in the market. When the bulk price rises, the average price of the quotation institution will also rise accordingly.
At the same time, the price adjustment of lithium salt enterprises' own products will refer to the average price counted by the above quotation agencies, and some listed companies have publicly responded before.
In this regard, some lithium salt companies also said that bulk orders are in the vanguard, and big manufacturers dare not adjust prices rashly, but adjust according to the market price level, which is one of the reasons why the actual sales price of related listed companies obviously lags behind the market price.
From this point of view, the whole price transmission chain is very clear, that is, the price increase of bulk orders has brought a series of price increases, leading the upward trend of the whole lithium salt price.
Bulk single substance has high valence.
Chen Yangyang shares the view that lithium in Qinghai Salt Lake is the main source of the above buyers' bulk orders.
According to his feedback, there is basically no lithium salt in the bulk market at present, such as Ganfeng Lithium Industry and Tianqi Lithium Industry, and the main source of circulation is salt lake lithium carbonate.
This is consistent with what was previously known in the 2 1 Century Business Herald. Taking Tianqi Lithium Industry as an example, due to the increase of lithium salt 202 1 in the second half of the year and the tight supply, the company has stopped selling to traders and directly supplied it to customers in the industrial chain.
The sales of lithium salt in Michelle and Minmetals are all through dealers, and there are traders behind the dealers to receive the goods. The recipient must keep part of its own profits. The more circulation links, the higher the price. Chen Yangyang said.
Therefore, the ex-factory price of lithium carbonate in salt lake is 470,000 yuan/ton, but the transaction price in the bulk market can reach 490,000 yuan, or higher.
Even recently, the output of lithium carbonate in salt lakes on the market has exceeded that in ores with higher costs.
According to the quotation information provided by Chen Yangyang, on September 4th, 65438, the price of battery-grade lithium carbonate in Minmetals Salt Lake was 5 1.7 million yuan/ton, while that of Shandong Ruifu Lithium Industry was 5 1.5 million yuan/ton.
In his view, this is unreasonable. Because in addition to the lower cost of extracting lithium from salt lake, the quality of products extracted from salt lake is not as good as lithium carbonate produced by ore. The electric carbon produced in salt lake can only be regarded as secondary battery level. Although the main content has reached the battery level, some small indicators can not be reached, and most of them are doped with some good quality electric carbon.
The above is the reason why the internal pricing mechanism of the industry leads to the rise of lithium carbonate. The recent rise of lithium salt also includes the staged stimulation brought by some accidental events.
According to the output data tracked by Baichuan Fu Ying, in August this year, the domestic output of lithium carbonate was about 33,400 tons, which maintained a high growth rate year-on-year, but decreased by nearly 4 percentage points from the previous month.
Further analysis of regional output shows that Jiangxi's output increased in that month, Qinghai's output remained stable, and Sichuan's output decreased by 30%. Obviously, local production capacity is affected by some power and production restrictions.
In addition, as the main source of lithium in the bulk market, the transportation of lithium salt is limited due to the poor traffic in the local epidemic.
I can't go to Qinghai to sign a contract recently, and the supply of large orders in the market has decreased. At the same time, some lithium salt enterprises in Qinghai have signed long-term orders before, and now they can't be shipped out. After customers in Xie Chang couldn't get the goods, they turned to the market for high prices, which further pushed up the transaction price of bulk orders. The aforementioned downstream purchasers pointed out.
Of course, Sichuan and Qinghai are only affected by stages. From the point of view of guiding the price return of lithium salt for a long time, it is necessary to reduce the flow of lithium salt in salt lakes, increase the proportion of direct supply to the downstream, and increase the development of domestic resources in the longer term.
In the first half of the year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology pointed out that this year, the development of domestic lithium, nickel and other resources will be moderately accelerated, and unfair competition behaviors such as hoarding and price gouging will be cracked down.
Among them, measures to strengthen supervision may also be aimed at large markets where dealers and traders are concentrated.
How to operate the remaining four months?
Seeing lithium carbonate rising again, the industry's market expectation for the remaining four months has also become optimistic, and there has even been a voice of rising to 600,000 yuan per ton in the market.
The high price of this round is higher than that of the first half of the year, which is generally expected, because the price can't go down in mid-September, and the market in the second half of the year is basically determined. Chen Yangyang said.
The core logic is that this node is very special in mid-September. After that, Qinghai, Tibet and other high-altitude areas will enter the frozen period, and the salt lake production will reappear seasonal decline. However, this is only an expectation, and it is necessary to observe the change of salt lake production data.
For the relatively radical expected price of 600,000 yuan, respondents all think it is less likely.
Different from the first quarter, the industry now has certain psychological expectations for price increases. Although supply and demand are still tight, the downstream price of about 500,000 yuan is already very contradictory, and the risks from policy regulation cannot be ignored. Chen Yangyang said that the recent adjustment of lithium salt price was obviously milder than that in the first quarter.
The aforementioned lithium salt people believe that it is a good situation that the current price can stabilize, and market sentiment is very important. The growth in the first quarter was due to the strong certainty of industry growth, and downstream enterprises concentrated on stocking goods. The second half of the year will be different. After the centralized stimulus of policies, the terminal demand of new energy vehicles has been released in advance, so the data in the next peak consumption season may be less than expected.
Even if the price of lithium stops here, it will not change the situation of high profit growth of related enterprises throughout the year.
According to Shanghai nonferrous price statistics, in the second quarter, the average price of domestic battery-grade lithium carbonate market was 4710.2 million yuan/ton, and the average price since the third quarter was 477,900 yuan/ton, which remained high.
In contrast, the variable that needs attention is the cost end, because in the third quarter, the import price of Australian mines rose very obviously, and the domestic CIF price has risen from about $4,200 per ton in the second quarter to nearly $6,400.
On the other hand, domestic lithium salt enterprises, except a few self-sufficient enterprises, mostly use minerals imported from Australia as raw materials, and rising costs will directly threaten their profit margins.
On September 14, people from Shengxin Lithium Energy reported that (ore price increase) would increase some costs, and the company's raw material self-sufficiency rate was around 20%. Lithium concentrate comes from Australia and China, mainly imported from Australia.
However, the contract for the supply of lithium concentrate signed by it is also to ensure the quantity but not the price. After the price of Australian lithium concentrate increases, its purchase price will also increase accordingly.
However, due to the company's low-priced inventory before, it may have a certain effect of smoothing the cost curve, and the overall cost increase may be slightly less than the increase of lithium concentrate in the same period.
As far as Yahua Group, which has disclosed the performance forecast, is concerned, the self-sufficiency rate of raw materials is also not high. The company expects the net profit in the first three quarters to be 3.462 billion yuan to 3.662 billion yuan.
Compared with the company's profit in the second quarter, its profit scale in the third quarter is between flat and slightly improved.