High cobalt prices lead to lithium battery enterprises the tide of materials replacement

"Now there is no market for lithium cobalt oxide, mainly because customers are too sensitive to the price." One of the top ten cathode materials companies in China sells to high- tech lithium batteries.

Behind the sensation of selling positive electrode companies, the high cost of lithium cobalt oxide brought about by high cobalt prices, lithium battery companies have to find alternative anode materials to reduce costs.

High-tech lithium battery has been learned that at present, the materials for replacing lithium cobalt oxide are mainly ternary and lithium manganate. The lithium battery application market is concentrated in low-end consumer products such as e-cigarettes, MP3, MP4, and children's toy watches. The low-end mobile phone factory has opened its platform to introduce ternary materials.

In fact, according to the announcement issued by Dangsheng Technology, the downstream consumer sector has been replacing lithium cobalt oxide with multi-materials to reduce costs since the previous years. Since the second half of last year, the sharp increase in cobalt prices has led to the price of lithium cobalt oxide. This increase will be more obvious.

At that time, high-tech lithium battery reported that due to the dependence on imports, supply and demand contradictions, cobalt prices climbed, resulting in lithium cobalt oxide in 2017 market quoted more than 350,000 Yuan / ton, an increase of 60% -70%, digital lithium battery companies across the board Raise its various products to balance its own cost pressures.

Generally speaking, direct sales of digital products to consumers will require at least 3-6 months of price increase. The cost pressure during this period still needs to be borne by lithium battery companies.

Based on the cost, in the consumer products with small capacity requirements and low performance requirements, lithium battery companies are actively seeking alternative materials, and ternary and lithium manganate materials are highly sought after. However, in the fields of ultra-thin mobile phones and pads, the advantages of lithium cobalt oxide volume energy density, high voltage, high temperature resistance and high rate performance cannot be completely replaced.

Cathode materials companies and lithium battery companies have said that the fundamental reason for seeking alternative materials is that the use of lithium cobalt oxide is too costly.

At present, the materials occupying the relative cost advantage are lithium manganate and ternary materials. According to the data monitoring on May 8th, the price of lithium cobalt oxide was 48.5-49.5 million Yuan/ton, and the price range of lithium manganate (capacity type) was 5.2-6.3 million Yuan/ton. The capacity of ternary material capacity (based on NCM523) The main offer is about 225,000 Yuan / ton.

Under the premise of the same lithium battery capacity, the unit cost of the above three materials varies greatly. For example, the price difference between lithium cobaltate and lithium manganate per ton reaches 42-440,000, plus other lithium materials and PACK packaging. Cost, the economic benefits of applying replacement materials to lithium battery companies are already very obvious.

But what effect will the use of ternary and lithium manganate materials have on lithium battery companies? A battery company executive said that the main impact is that the capacity is too low, so there will be restrictions on the application.

Under the high cobalt price chain effect, this year, in the low-end consumer products with small capacity, there will be more and more lithium battery companies looking for alternative lithium cobalt oxide materials. The sales representative mentioned above also revealed that in the first quarter of this year, its company's shipments were mainly concentrated in ternary materials. The mainstream lithium battery companies in the domestic digital field also have the demand for replacing lithium cobalt oxide, but from the product positioning point of view, this type of product Customer demand is mainly concentrated on high nickel materials.

Dangsheng Technology, Ningbo Rongbai and other domestic mainstream enterprises have research and development related multi-materials. Dangsheng Technology said that several high-voltage and high-rate multi-materials developed by the company have already replaced lithium cobalt oxide in downstream customers.

It is foreseeable that with the technological upgrading of cathode materials companies and the improvement of the technological level of lithium battery companies, the demand for lithium cobalt oxide in the consumer digital field will continue to accompany the high cobalt price.

The page contains the contents of the machine translation.