The price of 8 m of lithium copper foil has collapsed and processing fees have more than halved from last year

"The industry was out of stock in 2016 and 2017, and I was hiding at home. But the market will reverse in 2018. Last year, the cost of copper foil processing went up by about 30 to 40 percent. A well-known domestic lithium copper foil company sales executives to high - tech lithium expressed the market changes in the past two years.

As the cathode collector of lithium battery, lithium copper foil accounts for 5%-8% of the cost of lithium battery (which has been increased in recent years). It is an important lithium battery material. Driven by the growth of the market demand for power batteries driven by the explosion of new energy vehicles, the capacity of lithium electric copper foil is in short supply, and a wave of price hikes since 2016 has pushed it to a high-profile platform.

The price of lithium electric copper foil consists of "raw copper + processing fee". For copper foil enterprises, copper ingot price has been relatively stable in recent years, and the profit growth mainly comes from processing fees. In 2016, the application of lithium copper foil in power batteries is mainly 9-12 m, and the processing fee increases from the low of 30,000 yuan/ton to 40,000 yuan/ton. For example, the market price of 9 m products is in the range of 75,000 yuan/ton to 80,000 yuan/ton.

In 2017, 8 m lithium electric copper foil was in hot demand, and the processing fee also rose to 70,000 to 80,000 yuan per ton. But as of August this year, the overall price of 8 m lithium copper foil has dropped below 100,000 yuan/ton, and the processing fee has more than halved compared with last year.

From the technical point of view, power battery enterprises in order to meet the downstream range demand, reduce cost and increase efficiency, the demand trend of thin lithium electric copper foil is getting stronger and stronger. Starting from the second half of 2017, the market for 6 m products has been blowing, and offers from the market have exceeded 135,000 yuan/ton.

From the price point of view, 8 m and above thickness of lithium copper foil gradually declined into a red sea, and 6 m products due to power battery business demand growth and high volume production threshold, still maintain a good profit margin. Among them, the price evolution logic of lithium electric copper foil is closely related to production capacity, technology, demand and other factors.

8 m lithium copper foil

As mentioned by the sales executive above, the processing fee of lithium electric copper foil fell by half in the first half of this year, and some copper foil factories even returned to the pre-liberation period due to price impact. The products mentioned here mainly refer to 8 m lithium copper foil.

Why does the price fluctuate so much compared to the 8 m lithium copper foil in 2017?

From the point of demand, demand of power battery enterprise scale focus on 8 microns thickness of the product, but this year the new energy vehicles subsidies TuiPo again and technical adjustments, authors efficiency needs urgent power battery enterprises, including the diaphragm, electrolyte, six fluoride phosphate, lithium, lithium electricity copper foil, many upstream materials under pressure conduction.

On the supply and demand side, the consensus view in the industry is that the release of new capacity and the influx of new entrants is the most immediate cause of the collapse of lithium copper foil prices, which are dominated by 8 m products.

Lithium electric copper foil processing fees from 30,000 yuan/ton to 80,000 yuan or even 85,000 yuan/ton (individual copper foil factory quotation), the net interest rate is close to 200%. So profiteering, nature draws countless capital to contend for.

According to the public information, gaogong lithium power company took stock of the lithium power copper foil projects with a planned annual capacity of 10,000 tons from 2016 to 2018. A total of 8 enterprises, including Warwick copper foil, garden group, jiayuan technology, chaohua technology, lingbao huaxin, nord group and tongling nonferrous metals, announced to build lithium power copper foil projects, with a planned capacity of more than 200,000 tons. According to the law of the production cycle of lithium electric copper foil, the newly added capacity will be released in the first half of 2017 and the first half of 2018.

At the same time, according to the above sales executives, the number of domestic enterprises producing lithium electric copper foil was about 10 in 2015, but in 2018, with the increase of copper foil factories transferred from the thick copper foil market and the influx of new capital, the number of lithium electric copper foil enterprises has doubled to more than 30, and is still increasing.

In the above table, only 8 copper foil enterprises with a planning capacity of 10,000 tons are counted. In fact, there are many enterprises with a capacity of 3,000-5,000 tons. In general, lithium copper foil to form a stable supply of at least two years. At present, 8 m lithium copper foil in the digital lithium battery and power battery market competition is becoming increasingly fierce, a new round of entrants to quickly occupy the market, the price war. This also directly led to a number of domestic lithium copper foil main industry enterprises in the first half of this year's performance decline, let many enterprises complain.

6 m lithium copper foil application not as expected

Although compared with 8 m lithium copper foil, 6 m product is the hot spot that the power battery enterprises chase at present, but from the practical application, the application of 6 m lithium copper foil in the power battery enterprises has not met the expectations.

One is that there are not many copper foil enterprises that can produce 6 m in volume. Second, power battery enterprises encountered in the import process such as broken foil, die cutting copper powder and other technical problems need to be solved. Currently, the 6 m lithium copper foil is in the "thin to expensive" phase.

Feedback from lithium electricity copper foil more than domestic enterprises is that at the end of last year by the age of ningde, walter and other big customer demand for products 6 microns influence, a lot of copper foil companies overweight layout, but in fact, so far can meet the power battery enterprise stable production and high plasticity, and high pressure performance requirements, such as 6 microns lithium electricity copper foil enterprise are numbered, market supply capacity is limited.

In addition, the introduction of 6 m to the power battery industry was not as fast as the industry expected. At present, ningde era, byd is the domestic application of 6 m lithium copper foil most mature battery enterprises, the market can meet the supply of most of the two battery enterprises pocket. Although guoxuan high-tech, lishen, avic lithium battery, funeng technology and other battery enterprises are also actively introducing, but the marketization process has yet to be improved.

6 m lithium copper foil thickness is like a human hair one-tenth, from the copper foil enterprises and battery enterprises know, power battery enterprises have never used such a thin copper foil, coating, die cutting, cold pressing, baking and other aspects of the challenges. For example, at present, cut off the copper powder is the most difficult problem for power battery enterprises.

With the power battery enterprise technology, process improvement and copper foil enterprise products gradually improve, the industry's judgment is that the second half of this year, 6 m lithium copper foil market demand will increase more than the first half of the year.

In fact, the 6 m product technology and formulation is not very different from each other, leaving the opportunity for the lithium copper foil industry is a race against time, who can be the first to overcome the difficulties to achieve scale and stable capacity, who will be in this wave of price competition. Wait and see.

The page contains the contents of the machine translation.