What will be the price trend of lithium battery negative electrode materials in 2018?

Subsidies continue to recede this year, and battery companies will have a stronger bargaining power. With the gradual construction and release of large-scale production capacity of leading companies such as fir shares, the bargaining power of these large companies has become stronger, and it is expected that negative material prices will start to decline in the second half of 2018. After the price boom in 2017, negative materials may once again go to the pace of price reduction this year.

In 2017, China's lithium battery market grew 27 % year-on-year to 80.5 GWh, driving the output of China's lithium battery negative material market to increase 23.7 % year-on-year to 146,000 tons. According to the GGII survey data and the development trend of new energy vehicles, the demand and production and sales of negative materials in 2018 will continue to rise year-on-year. The top 7 negative enterprises headed by Shanshan shares and Jiangxi Zichen are all significantly expanding their production, especially with the largest strength of Shanshan shares. In August 2017, Shanshan shares opened an integrated base for the production of 100,000 tons of negative polar materials per year in Baotou. At the same time, although the downstream energy density of power cells is urgently increasing, and new negative materials such as silicon and carbon have emerged, the consensus in the industry is that artificial graphite will still be dominant in the negative materials of power cells within 1-2 years.

In 2018, how the negative material price trend has become the focus of current attention.

Specifically, artificial graphite and natural graphite are still the mainstream market demand for lithium batteries. In 2017, natural graphite is less affected by cost and the price is relatively stable; However, due to changes in the fundamentals of supply and demand, artificial graphite has experienced several price increases, breaking the calm situation in recent years. In the report of many times, it can be seen that the price of artificial graphite rose by 40 % at that time. Natural graphite is mostly used in high-end digital lithium battery companies. At present, the supply of production capacity is relatively stable, and the price will not fluctuate too much. However, artificial graphite will be on the decline in 2018.

Compared to 2017, the supply and demand sides that affect the price trend of artificial graphite this year will have the following changes:

The supply side is mainly affected by raw materials and graphicized production capacity:? In January this year, the supply of raw materials oil Coke and needle Coke eased, mainly by increasing the import of raw materials, graphite electric extreme to needle Coke and other materials tend to be rational. The two materials entered a price stability period compared to the June 2017 "surge." At present, the mainstream price of needle Coke before the Lunar New Year is 21,000 yuan / ton-24,000 yuan / ton.

Graphite production capacity is still insufficient, and production is expected to resume in most plants by March this year. Compared with last year, one obvious change is that this year, many of the top 10 negative enterprises abandoned outsourcing and increased the layout of independent graphed production capacity. The graphation processing fee is currently maintained at 22,000 yuan/ton-26,000 Yuan/ton. Demand-side battery companies were relatively stable in January and are expected to rise significantly after March: due to the Spring Festival, most battery companies have reduced their procurement demand, mainly based on digesting inventory. Some people in the industry believe that this year's subsidies continue to retreat, battery companies will be more bargaining power. With the gradual construction and release of large-scale production capacity of leading companies such as fir shares, the bargaining power of these large companies has become stronger, and it is expected that negative material prices will start to decline in the second half of 2018. Despite lower prices, the scale cost effect is starting to show, still increasing profitability.

In fact, the price drop is only a microcosm of negative enterprises 'fierce competition under the new energy vehicle environment in 2018. Compared with Silicon based materials that are still in the initial stage, artificial graphite and other negative materials have entered the competition for the scale of production capacity. On the one hand, through the expansion of the production scale of negative materials, leading enterprises in the domestic industry can strengthen the bargaining power of the company's raw materials procurement, improve the use efficiency of production equipment, and enhance market competitiveness; On the other hand, the trend of negative material prices is downward. Leading companies will increase their profitability due to concentrated production capacity and increased shipments. Enterprises with concentrated production capacity and mastery of core technologies will become winners of the "strong strong ".

The following is a partial negative enterprise production capacity competition:

? Sequoia shares: 60,000 tons

On January 2, 2018, Hu Bo, general manager of Shanghai fir, said in his New Year's speech that 2018 is a key year for the implementation of the strategic goals. Ningbo, Huzhou and Zhangzhou factories expanded production and finished production in the first phase of the Ningde factory to enable the company to have an annual production capacity of 60,000 tons; The first phase of Baotou's annual production of 100,000 tons of integrated chemical plants(50,000 tons per year) will mean that fir technology will create a huge competitiveness in production technology and scale cost advantages.

Jiangxi Zichen: 50,000 tons

According to the latest research data, the current negative material market of Jiangxi zichen ranks among the top three in China, forming a duopoly pattern with Shanghai fir in the field of artificial graphite.

Public information shows that Jiangxi Zichen negative material production capacity is currently about 10,000 tons(8h per day, including bottleneck process data), this year's C plant trial production, D/E/F plant is under construction. After production(before 20119), it is expected that the production capacity will increase to 30,000 tons; Raising 20,000 tons of negative materials will also be put into production within 2 years. It is estimated that the total production capacity can reach 50,000 tons within two years.

? Shenzhen Snow: 30,000 tons

In 2017, high-capacity lithium electricity & amp; At the annual meeting of electric vehicles, Shenzhensinuo's R&D engineer Huwenliang said that the company's production capacity of negative materials will reach 33,000 tons in 2018, of which graphite will have a negative electrode of 30,000 tons and Silicon will have a negative electrode of 0.3 million tons; By 2019, the company's graphite negative electrode material production capacity will reach 45,000 tons, and Silicon carbon negative electrode production capacity will reach 10,000 tons.

Zhengtuo Energy: 17,000 tons

At present, Zhengtuo Energy has a variety of products such as natural graphite, artificial graphite, and composite graphite, and now has an annual production capacity of 17,000 tons of cathode materials. At the beginning of 2018, Yanxuefeng, deputy general manager of Zhengtuo Energy, once told Gaogong Lidian that at present, Zhengtuo Energy has effectively increased the size of the company's production capacity by increasing its capital and increasing its production capacity to 30,000 tons after 2018. / year.

Kegin Energy: 15,000 tons

The Kaijin Energy Growth Enterprise Market issued a prospectus for listing, and it plans to raise 598 million Yuan in shares, all of which are used for 15,000 tons of lithium battery graphite negative electrode material(Phase I) and R&D center projects.

The page contains the contents of the machine translation.