SMM October 9 News:
After the National Day holiday, prices of cobalt sulphate and other salt products continued to rise this week. As the holiday just ended, most recycling enterprises did not offer quotes this week. However, due to the significant increase in cobalt salt prices, the black mass payables for ternary and LCO both rose slightly. The prices per % lithium for LFP black mass remained stable this week. Taking LFP pole piece black mass as an example, the current price is 2,650-2,800 yuan/mtu. For ternary black mass, the current nickel and cobalt payable indicator for ternary pole piece black mass is 74-75.5%, up 0.5% WoW, while the lithium payables are 69-72%, basically flat WoW. On the profit side, externally purchasing LFP black mass to produce lithium carbonate currently continues to incur losses, with profit margins ranging from -5% to -6%. Except for several newly commissioned LFP battery hydrometallurgy recycling plants this year, most LFP recycling enterprises have production lines that can produce lithium carbonate from other raw materials. Therefore, even with some improvement in lithium carbonate prices, most enterprises chose to suspend purchasing and production when facing losses. The situation is similar for ternary hydrometallurgy, with profits hovering around 1-3%. The LCO hydrometallurgy sector performs slightly better than LFP and ternary enterprises, at around 3%, and with the sharp rise in cobalt salt prices, profits in both the ternary and LCO sectors rebounded further. Supply side, after the price increases of nickel, cobalt, and lithium, upstream recycling enterprises quickly followed with price increases for LCO batteries, LFP batteries, and pole pieces. Black mass prices also increased to some extent. Demand side, as this lithium carbonate price increase is linked to factors such as China-US trade and coking coal, most enterprises, facing losses, primarily adopted a wait-and-see approach, with most LFP battery hydrometallurgy recycling plants maintaining B-end toll processing.
SMM New Energy Research Team
Cong Wang 021-51666838
Rui Ma 021-51595780
Disheng Feng 021-51666714
Yanlin Lü 021-20707875
Zhicheng Zhou 021-51666711
