How much impact lithium battery prices fell has on the company - Tianqi Lithium Industry.

On January 17, Tianqi Lithium Industry Co., Ltd. held an investor exchange meeting to answer questions from investors about recent industry hotspots and company development. Li Bo, Secretary of the Board of Directors of Tianqi Lithium, said at the investment exchange meeting that in the future, compared with the lithium in the salt lake, the lithium extracted by the Australian Green Bush will still be the first choice for the supply of high-quality lithium products. The long-term decline in subsidies for new energy vehicles will increase demand for high-end lithium chemicals.

Lithium extraction from the ore and salt lakes: lithium dislocation competition, coexistence development

At the beginning of new years “Lithium Salt Lake” has once again become a hot spot in the industry On January 10, the Shanghai Securities News published a series of articles, saying that Qinghai Salt Lake Lithium was standing at the "innovative change". Wang Min, deputy director of the Salt Lake Resources Chemistry Laboratory of the Qinghai Salt Lake Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was interviewed by the Shanghai Securities Journal. “Overall, there is no problem in the technology, cost and application of lithium in Qinghai Salt Lake.” Then, on January 14th, Lanxiao Technology announced that it has an annual output of 100 tons of carbonic acid in Qinghai Cold Lake. The lithium project has produced high-purity lithium carbonate, which realizes the industrial transformation of the core technology of salt lake brine extraction lithium sorbent, process and system equipment.

Soon, the capital market reacted. After the announcement, Lanxiao Technology continuously harvested multiple daily limited while the ore picking lithium lead Tianqi Lithium Industry and Yanfeng Lithium Industry showed different levels of stock price decline.

At the investor exchange meeting on the same day, Li Bo said that when the salt lake lifted lithium to influence the supply and demand of the industry, for a long time in the future, the spodumene mine represented by Australia's Green Bush and the Atacama in South America. The salt lake resources represented by Mayan Lake will continue to be the mainstream of global lithium resource supply.

In terms of product quality, high-quality ore-extracted lithium is capable of directly producing high-quality battery-grade lithium products due to better resource endowment, while lithium in South America's salt lakes mainly supplies industrial-grade lithium products. Li Bo believes that the future of lithium ore and salt lakes for lithium dislocation competition and coexistence development is expected to continue.

When talking about the recent hot domestic salt lakes, Li Bo said that the sustainable development path of lithium in salt lakes is the comprehensive utilization of resources. The domestic salt lakes have low lithium content, difficult enrichment, high magnesium and lithium, and poor natural environment. Objective factors, if there is no scientific feasibility analysis, continuous financing capability, and accumulation of process technology and production operations, it is difficult to form sustainable competitiveness in the case of increasingly differentiated and centralized product competition.

However, Tianqi Lithium Industry is also highly concerned about the development of lithium in domestic salt lakes, and is looking forward to solving problems in technology and industrialization. In fact, Tianqi Lithium acquired the 20% stake in Zabuye Salt Lake in Shigatse, Tibet, as early as 2014, and began to reserve lithium-related technology in the salt lake.

Lithium battery price decline has limited impact on the company

In 2018, the probability of subsidies for new energy vehicles will be lowered. The OEM will pass the pressure of subsidies to the power battery manufacturers, or the price of lithium batteries will fall further.

Whether the decline in the price of lithium batteries will affect the company, Li Bo said that because lithium chemicals account for a small proportion of the current cost of lithium batteries, the sensitivity to battery prices is weak, battery manufacturers are more concerned than battery prices. The supply side is stable and reliable, and the quality is stable and high quality.

It is understood that the cost of lithium carbonate accounts for about 30% to 40% of the cost of the cathode material, while the cathode material accounts for 25% to 30% of the total battery cost. Lithium carbonate accounts for only about 10% of the total battery cost.

Li Bo said that the new energy subsidies will have a certain impact on the market in the short term, but in the long run, it will be conducive to the market-oriented competition of the entire industry, and promote the continuous improvement of battery products in terms of safety and performance. Based on the future determination of the development path of lithium battery common technology, the improvement of battery performance is inseparable from the overall technical synergy of key elements such as lithium, cobalt and nickel. It is expected that with the change of battery technology, it will increase the demand for high-end lithium chemicals, application, and this will be a long-term positive for Tianqi Lithium.

Optimistic about the future positive layout

Looking forward to the future development of the lithium industry, Li Bo believes that the demand for lithium chemical products for electric vehicles, energy storage and consumer electronics will continue to be strong for a long time to be foreseen. In the next ten years, mainstream battery technologies such as lithium iron phosphate batteries, lithium cobalt oxide batteries and multi-type ternary batteries will have strong maturity and high market acceptance for lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide. The demand for lithium and battery grade lithium hydroxide is expected to maintain a rapidly growing differentiation pattern.

Based on this judgment, Tianqi Lithium will further accelerate the release of production capacity of related products in the future.

According to reports, in 2018, Tianqi Lithium will rely mainly on the technological transformation and expansion of Sichuan Shehong and Jiangsu Zhangjiagang two production bases, increasing the annual output of lithium chemicals to 40,000 tons, an increase of more than 20%. By the end of 2019, the total capacity of lithium chemical equipment in Tianqi Lithium Industry will reach 110,000 tons/year, including 53,000 tons of battery-grade lithium hydroxide and battery-grade lithium carbonate. It is planned to achieve 100% capacity utilization by 2020.

Li Bo said that in addition to the core battery-grade lithium carbonate and battery-grade lithium hydroxide products, the company will also pay close attention to the development of lithium battery recycling and the next generation of advanced lithium batteries, and adhere to technical reserves.

The page contains the contents of the machine translation.