Only 5 companies are listed in the compliance list of power battery recycling market

Recently, the ministry released the first batch of conform to the new energy vehicles conditions of comprehensive utilization of waste power battery industry standard enterprise list, including Guangdong Guanghua Sci - Tech Co., Ltd, jingmen green new materials Co., Ltd., hunan state general circulation technology Co., Ltd., quzhou huayou cobalt new materials Co., Ltd., ganzhou city hao peng technology Co., Ltd., etc. 5 companies.

The production and sales of new energy vehicles have been in the "explosion period", while the recycling of old power batteries is still in the "touch the stones and cross the river" stage. According to EVTank research data, it is expected that China's power battery recycling volume will reach 422,000 tons in 2022, and the scale of cascade utilization and recycling and dismantling market will reach 13.1 billion yuan. However, the overall decommissioning volume of power batteries in 2018 has not yet reached the scale, which will affect the profitability of enterprises.

In response, China business news contacted guanghua technology and GEM Co.,Ltd (the parent company of jingmen greenbeauty, hereinafter referred to as "greenbeauty") for an interview, but no reply has been received as of press time.

Wang jingzhong, vice chairman of the China battery industry association, said that in the early stage of the industry development, a certain threshold should be set for enterprises to enter the bureau, so as to avoid environmental pollution caused by enterprises simply dealing with waste batteries for profit.

The industry is in the early stage of explosion

In recent years, under the influence of policy support and other factors, the rapid development of new energy vehicles has promoted the accelerated layout of the power battery market. It is known that the domestic battery output in 2014 was 3.7GWh, and the installed capacity of power battery in 2017 was 36.2GWh.

Based on this, the market of power battery recycling may usher in new opportunities. According to the report on power battery recycling industry (2018) released by China battery alliance and Beijing green wisdom energy technology research institute, retired power batteries will be recycled in the way of cascade utilization first and resource recycling later. It is estimated that the market size of battery recycling will reach about 6.5 billion yuan in 2020, including 4.1 billion yuan for cascade utilization and 2.4 billion yuan for recycling.

Many enterprises have increased the layout to meet the market. It is learned that guanghua technology started to enter the field of lithium battery production in 2017. In October 2017, a 150-ton/month battery recycling demonstration line was built in shantou, guangdong. In May 2018, guanghua technology established zhuhai zhongli new energy technology co., ltd. with its own funds to carry out cascade utilization, recycling, dismantling and remanufacturing of lithium batteries.

Green beauty recently signed a contract with the people's government of ningde city, planning to build ningde new energy materials industrial park and ningde circular economy industrial park. Jingmen GMM also established a joint venture company with yongqing science and technology co., LTD. The initial target is ternary precursor materials for 50,000 tons of power batteries and ternary anode materials for 20,000 tons of power batteries.

In addition, also have many "player" enter bureau through the form such as merger and acquisition. Ningde times completed the acquisition of guangdong bangpu recycling technology co., LTD. (hereinafter referred to as "bangpu recycling") in 2015. Hunan bangpu is a subsidiary company of bangpu recycling. Xiamen tungsten industry and baic new energy hold 47% and 4.47% shares of ganzhou haopeng respectively. Yang qingyu, director of the research department of China battery alliance, said that some material enterprises, vehicle enterprises and power battery enterprises have been engaged in the business of power battery recycling for one or two years, but most of them only occupy one or two parts of multiple links.

Green beauty said that the environmental protection and new energy industry is entering a period of rapid development, there will be a large number of potential competitors through project investment, mergers and acquisitions, seeking joint ventures and other ways to enter the field, further intensifying the industry competition.

Guanghua technology mentioned that the company's lithium battery material recycling business belongs to the company's new business field, in the past two years a large number of large central enterprises, local state-owned enterprises and private capital into the field of waste treatment. In addition, guanghua technology said that the current level of industrialization and market concentration of waste treatment is low.

Wang said 2018 is the year of battery recycling, not the year of explosion, and the number of new energy vehicle batteries reaching the end of their life is still small. Yang qingyu also said that the current power battery recycling industry is in the early stage of the outbreak, and the overall number of decommissioning in 2018 has not become large.

Industry regulation is a priority

In the early stage of industrial explosion, the recycling and utilization of waste power batteries is still in the stage of "crossing the river by feeling stones", which requires the gradual improvement and promotion of relevant management standards.

At the beginning of 2018, the ministry of industry and information technology and other seven ministries and commissions jointly issued the interim measures for the management of the recycling and utilization of new energy vehicle power batteries, encouraging the development of cascade utilization and recycling, and promoting the innovation of the recycling and utilization model of power batteries. The implementation of the extended producer responsibility system, which requires automobile manufacturers to assume the main responsibility for the recovery of power batteries, has been implemented since August 1, 2018.

By September 5, the ministry of industry and information technology released the first batch of enterprises in line with the "new energy vehicle waste power battery comprehensive utilization industry standard conditions" list.

From the current point of view, the ministry of industry and information technology has temporarily announced five enterprises that truly meet the requirements of the industry norms, which may still need to be improved. The data shows that there are many small workshops in the existing recycling channels of power lithium battery, and the non-standard recycling channels may cause great trouble to the development of the industry.

Take the development of lead-acid battery recycling industry as an example. In 2011, China battery industry association submitted a proposal on the deposit system for recycling used lead-acid batteries to relevant departments, and it was mentioned that at that time, 80% of the recycling share was occupied by informal small enterprises. It is known that, in order to reduce the weight and freight, the owner of a small workshop will choose to pour acid before transportation, which is easy to let a large amount of acid into the groundwater system and soil pollution.

Public information shows that although lithium battery does not contain lead, cadmium and other heavy metals, but there are still nickel, cobalt, manganese and other heavy metals in the electrolyte, electrolyte, organics containing fluorine pollution. Such as lithium hexafluorophosphate in lithium power battery electrolyte, it is easy to hydrolyze in the air environment to produce phosphorus pentafluorofluoride, hydrogen fluoride and other harmful substances, the human body, plants and animals have a strong corrosive effect, so we should pay special attention to the solvent and the treatment of lithium hexafluorophosphate.

Wang said the recycling industry has needed thresholds and standards from the beginning. "Companies either don't deal with it or they deal with it all. To avoid enterprises in order to profit, only part of the processing of profitable materials, causing pollution to the environment.

Costs and profits are not easily balanced

Today, for most companies, the layout of power battery recycling is "rainy day". At present, the industry has not become a large scale, layout and investment, many enterprises need to solve the current stage of investment and income balance.

According to the data, in the first half of the year, the revenue of new energy battery materials business of guanghua science and technology co., ltd. and grindelink grew rapidly, while the gross profit margin declined slightly. In addition, in the process of expanding the layout of the cost of more funds.

Recently, guanghua technology released the semi-annual report of 2018, which mentioned that the operating revenue of lithium battery materials was 99.3789 million yuan, up 101.49% year on year. Gross margin was 27.31 percent, down 2.18 percent from a year earlier. In addition, the report mentioned that the "technology center upgrade project" and "annual output of 14,000 tons of lithium battery anode material construction project" added about 11 million yuan.

Grimm also mentioned in its 2018 semi-annual report that the operating revenue of new energy battery materials was 404,278,410,000 yuan, up 98.70% year on year. Gross margin was 22.95 percent, down 3.26 percent year-on-year. Recently, the joint venture company established by jingmen greentech and yongqing technology co., ltd. and the fuan municipal government signed an investment agreement on the three-yuan positive electrode material project for power batteries, with a total investment of about 1.85 billion yuan.

In addition, in the first half of 2018, the financial expenses and management expenses of greimai increased to varying degrees. It is learned that in order to meet the needs of expanding the scale of production and operation, the company increased its interest-based liabilities and financial expenses by 303 million yuan, an increase of 36.79% compared with the same period last year. The management expense was 466 million yuan, an increase of 65.24% year on year, mainly due to the increase of the company's r&d input and the increase of salary, depreciation and amortization cost caused by the expansion of production capacity.

Yang qingyu said that some enterprises are difficult to make profits, first of all because the scale of the industry has not yet come up, and the price fluctuations of lithium battery materials, cascade recycling cycle is long also affect the earnings of enterprises. Yang qingyu mentioned that the ministry of industry and information technology recently issued a more standardized development of the five enterprises, also basically can be profitable enterprises.

Wang jingzhong said that the large-scale scrapping will take two years, and many enterprises are facing the situation of "not enough to eat". "The power battery recycling process needs to meet the quantity requirements before it can be profitable." In addition, some enterprises now have high processing technology costs, difficult to coordinate costs and benefits, easy to lead to losses.

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