Lithium battery industry chain investment nearly one trillion yuan

Zijin Mining recently disclosed that it intends to acquire all shares of Canada's NeoLithium For about 4.939 billion yuan (960 million Canadian dollars), a 36% premium. The deal is expected to be completed in the first half of 2022.

Zijin mining related personnel told the Securities Daily reporter that lithium is a strategic mineral of new energy, which is determined by the board of directors of the company to expand strategic resources, the company will rely on the original mining development advantage to further expand strategic minerals related to new energy.

Safe stock metal new material analyst Xu Yong its said in an interview with "securities journal" reporter, since this year the domestic and foreign new energy giants are increasing lithium layout, including LG energy era, ningde, jiangxi feng LiYe etc., but is around the main layout, with the domestic mining giant zijin mining 5 billion yuan cross-border incoming lithium, It means the global scramble for lithium resources intensifies.

Prices continue to climb giant accelerated layout

Supported by the strong demand in the downstream, the competition for lithium resources continues to intensify.

Recently, ningde times announced that it will acquire Canadian lithium miner MillennialLithium with about 1.92 billion yuan; Recently, yabao, the world's largest lithium producer, was also reported to buy Guangxi Tianyuan for about $200 million to improve its lithium conversion capacity. Ganfeng Lithium, addicted to hoarding ore, has made 4 large-scale acquisitions this year, using funds of about 4.2 billion yuan. It was also reported in early October that LG Energy signed a lithium offtake agreement with Brazilian lithium miner SigmaLithium for 60,000 tons of lithium concentrate in 2023 and 100,000 tons per year in 2024-2027.

Qi Haikun, president of Beijing Special Billion Sunshine New energy, told securities Daily that the downstream demand for lithium ore is too big, and the price has risen all the way in recent years.

Since this year, lithium industry enterprises have accelerated the layout of upstream lithium resources, more and more capital is also willing to cross-border layout of lithium. Data show that since the second half of the year, there have been more than 20 enterprises cross-border distribution of lithium, among which listed companies including Golden Yuan, Anzhong, etc.

Zijin Mining's 5 billion yuan lithium mine acquisition plan attracted much attention, and ningde Times is one of the major shareholders of the new lithium company it is acquiring. As early as last September, Ningde times invested about 44 million yuan in the new lithium company, and participated in the private increase in February this year. Currently, ningde Times holds 8% of the company's shares, which means that in less than a year, Ningde Times realized several times the premium of the investment. According to the disclosure, the core asset of The new Lithium company is the Argentina 3Q Lithium Salt Lake project, which is 100% held. The project has 700 tons of LCE (lithium carbonate equivalent) and 1.3 million tons of LCE reserves. The future annual production capacity is expected to reach 40,000 tons of battery grade lithium carbonate.

On September 14, Australian lithium miner Pilbara held its second spodumene concentrate auction. The final auction price was $2,240 / dry ton, continuing its record high, according to public information. However, in Xu Yongqi's view, although the current lithium price has hit a record high, but in the long term does not represent the "top", lithium resource scarcity is still outstanding.

In the first three quarters, the investment in lithium battery industry chain reached nearly one trillion yuan.

On October 10, ganfeng Lithium, the leader of lithium mining, again issued a price adjustment notice, announced that all of its lithium metal products to increase the price, the company's lithium metal products to increase the price of 100,000 yuan/ton, the company said the raw material prices continue to rise and power supply impact, resulting in a substantial increase in the cost of lithium metal production.

In addition, according to data, since the beginning of this year, affected by the continued high prosperity of the lithium plate, the industrial chain of multi-link products rose larger. Lithium metal rose from 485,000 yuan/ton on January 4 to 865,000 yuan/ton on October 8, with a cumulative increase of 78.35%. Lithium carbonate rose from 53,000 yuan/ton to 180,000 yuan/ton, a cumulative increase of 239.62%; Lithium iron phosphate was quoted at 38,000 yuan/ton at the beginning of the year, and the current price increased by 110.53% compared with the beginning of the year.

QiHaiKun analysis thinks, lithium-ion battery in short supply this year, the biggest constraints is the raw material of lithium production capacity is insufficient, the domestic new energy vehicles speeding up production, the speed of the global electric car unexpectedly, the developing trend in the next few years are likely to be reached new highs, it formed a strong support the growth in demand for lithium batteries.