Recently, the price of lithium has continued to fall, which has attracted wide attention both inside and outside the industry. It is understood that the price of lithium concentrate has dropped to less than 600 US dollars / ton from 800 US dollars / ton to 1000 US dollars / ton. Zhang Jiangfeng, Secretary General of the lithium branch of China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association, said that the inventory of lithium mining enterprises is generally low nowadays, and most enterprises dare not hoard the inventory, even if there is, at most they will hoard the inventory for two days.
"This wave of price decline of lithium carbonate is mainly affected by supply and demand." In an interview with the Securities Daily, a person from the lithium battery industry said that on the demand side, subsidies for new energy vehicles have declined, and many end vehicle enterprises have cut relevant battery orders, leading to a low price in the lithium carbonate market. On the supply side, in the past, when the lithium carbonate market was booming, many lithium battery enterprises collectively put on production capacity, resulting in the centralized release of production capacity, resulting in the current situation of imbalance between supply and demand.
Statistics show that in October this year, the installed capacity of supporting drive motors for new energy vehicles in China was 86132, a year-on-year decrease of 45%. To this end, Ni Shaoyong, vice general manager of Chery new energy and President of the Research Institute, thinks that if the cost of lithium battery is not reduced by 50%, the whole industry may not survive. "State subsidies will disappear, and the era of easy cash for the lithium industry will be gone."
Lithium prices are falling
Large enterprises dare not hoard goods for more than two days
Recently, Zhang Jiangfeng said in a conference call organized by a securities company that the trend of the whole lithium battery industry this year was beyond most people's expectation, especially in the second half of the year, the price decline was very severe. According to Zhang Jiangfeng, when investigating key lithium battery enterprises, he found that most of the raw material factories are now in a state of loss.
"What's more, no one will accept the offer if they want to sell it. The manufacturer can only convert lithium into lithium salt and sell it, and try to recycle more cash." According to Zhang Jiangfeng's analysis, on the one hand, the price of lithium concentrate in the market has fallen close to the cash cost line of newly opened mines; on the other hand, there are reasons for the large number of shipments of enterprises, further aggravating the decline of lithium price.
"Lithium mines are on sale now, and raw materials are being gradually reduced. At present, the price per ton of battery grade lithium carbonate has been reduced to about 60000 yuan," the lithium industry practitioners told the Securities Daily
The reporter of Securities Daily learned that in 2015, the price of battery grade lithium carbonate had started a round of rising trend, and the highest price was once close to 200000 yuan / ton. But since February 2018, the price of battery grade lithium carbonate has fallen to the top, which lasted for a year and a half.
According to the interviewees in the lithium battery industry, at present, most of the enterprises are producing a small amount of products and controlling inventory in order to maintain the customers who signed the bill before. The business logic of "fear of falling and fear of rising" has led to the fact that the downstream demand enterprises of lithium mine dare not hoard too much raw materials. Even the large lithium battery enterprises with a capacity of 230000 tons only maintain two-day inventory.
"Driven by subsidies and capital pursuit, the power battery industry has experienced several years of irrational growth." Qin xingcai, chairman of Tianjin Lishen, predicted that before 2020, the power battery industry will experience a round of structural adjustment period. Relevant enterprises have to face the adjustment of marketing mode in the "post subsidy era", and the whole industry will be further divided and shuffled.
More than 10 "lithium related" acquisitions suspended
90% of the battery enterprises are out of the game
In the past few years, the acquisition of lithium battery assets has become the most direct way for some listed companies to get involved in the field of lithium battery and rapidly expand their business income. However, with the rapid growth of power battery production and the adjustment of new energy vehicle policies in recent years, the power lithium battery companies that were previously overvalued by the market generally suffered from the impact of profit decline, and many listed companies cross-border acquisition of lithium assets The deal was suspended.
Zhongli group is one of the typical representatives. On January 11 this year, China Li group announced that it decided to terminate its plan to acquire Shenzhen BIC Power Battery Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "BIC power") and move into the field of military electronics.
According to the Securities Daily, the asset valuation of the merger and acquisition transaction initiated by China interest group is expected to reach 10 billion yuan. As for the reasons for the termination of the acquisition, Zhongli group said that, in the face of the impact of macro-economic environmental factors such as large fluctuation of secondary market price and deleveraging, combined with the actual situation of the target company, there is a great uncertainty on this major asset restructuring.
However, it is generally believed in the industry that the reason for China Li group to give up bik power may not be limited to this in terms of the overall market environment of new energy. On the one hand, it is forced by the influence of the continuous decline of subsidies; on the other hand, the current valuation of the target company is too high, and there is a big uncertainty on whether the performance can be completed in the future. If the company continues to acquire, it may bring greater risks to the future development of the company.
Coincidentally, baling technology also announced on January 18 this year that it intended to transfer 20% to 30% equity of Suzhou Yuliang battery, the provider of ternary power battery system solution held by Kelong investment. However, since the signing of the letter of intent for equity transfer, due to no substantive progress, both parties agreed to terminate the above-mentioned letter of intent for equity transfer through friendly negotiation.
If we go back to 2018, according to incomplete statistics from Securities Daily, there have been more than 10 cases of termination of lithium battery acquisition in China.
Fang Jianhua, a member of China electric vehicle 100 member association, said that the production capacity of products that can truly meet the performance requirements and market demand of Vehicle Enterprises
