Lithium carbonate spot price below 100000 yuan, Australian mining suspended partial production? Can it rebound in the future?

Lithium carbonate spot price below 100000 yuan, Australian mining suspended partial production? Can it rebound in the future?

01Industry information

According to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the production of new energy passenger vehicles in China reached 1.095 million units in December, a year-on-year increase of 45.4% and a month on month increase of 10.5%. The cumulative production was 8.92 million units, a year-on-year increase of 33.7%. Wholesale sales reached 1.108 million vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 47.5% and a month on month increase of 15.3%. This year, a total of 8.864 million vehicles were wholesale, a year-on-year increase of 36.3%. Selling 945000 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 47.3% and a month on month increase of 12.1%. This year, the cumulative retail sales have reached 7.736 million vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 36.2%;

On January 4th, the National Development and Reform Commission and four other departments issued the Implementation Opinions on Strengthening the Integration and Interaction between New Energy Vehicles and the Power Grid. The opinion proposes that by 2025, China's vehicle network interaction technology standard system will be preliminarily established, the charging peak and valley electricity price mechanism will be fully implemented and continuously optimized, significant progress will be made in market mechanism construction, and efforts will be made to carry out pilot demonstrations of vehicle network interaction.

By 2030, China's vehicle network interaction technology standard system will be basically established, the market mechanism will be more perfect, vehicle network interaction will achieve large-scale application, intelligent and orderly charging will be fully promoted, new energy vehicles will become an important component of the electrochemical energy storage system, and efforts will be made to provide the power system with tens of millions of kilowatts of bidirectional flexible regulation capacity;

3. Due to the continuous decline in lithium prices, Australian lithium miner Core Lithium has announced that in response to the deterioration of the lithium market situation, the company has conducted a strategic assessment of its business and will temporarily suspend its mining operations at the Grants open pit in the Finniss project in the Northern Territory, but will continue to process existing ore deposits.

02Disk analysis

Market: The daily average price of lithium carbonate spot is 96500 yuan/ton, with a weekly decline of 0.52%. The spot price has remained stable for three consecutive days in the middle of the week, showing signs of temporary stabilization.

Weekly production has rapidly declined: Last week, the production of lithium carbonate was 6991 tons, a decrease of 3.68% compared to the previous week. The market supply side still faces significant pressure, and the current production is mainly maintained by larger smelters. Due to factors such as costs and orders, coupled with the approaching Spring Festival, there has been an increase in production cuts and shutdowns in small salt factories. However, from a yearly perspective, the demand for lithium carbonate still maintains a year-on-year growth of over 30%. This week, the smelter's inventory was 41300 tons, an increase of 2.59% compared to last week.

Continuous insufficient demand: The weekly production of lithium iron phosphate cathode is 15700 tons, with an operating rate of 21.4%; The weekly production of ternary cathode materials is 12200 tons, with an operating rate of 40.5%.

In terms of lithium iron phosphate, the weekly production and operating rate have seriously declined, which is related to a large amount of downstream production and insufficient orders near New Year's Day.

The production of ternary positive electrodes remained stable in December, and the overall operating rate continued to decline. This week, downstream inventory reached 14100 tons, an increase of 3.65% compared to the previous week.

03

Strategic recommendations

This week marks the first delivery month for lithium carbonate. In terms of the 01 contract, there was a significant increase in trading volume in the past two days, but with the overall drop in trading volume on Thursday and Friday, the price center returned to around 100000 yuan. The 01 contract changed from a premium to a discount, and the average delivery price quickly moved towards the spot market, even if the transaction price returned.

As of this Friday, a total of 10740 warehouse receipts have been registered, and a total of 6454 pairs have been delivered in four trading days. The overall situation is relatively smooth and has exceeded the market's previously pessimistic expectations.

In addition to the strong willingness of sellers to deliver due to the mid week market surge, if the delivery volume reaches around 10000 lots (which also means that most of the scattered orders in the market participate in delivery), and the delivery products can meet the production needs of most downstream enterprises, it may change the current trade pattern of lithium carbonate.