Power battery recycling prices have soared, recycling prices have been 10 times last year! Car compa

On November 8, lithium carbonate spot price continued to hit a record high; Shanghai Steel Association data show that on November 8, the battery grade lithium carbonate price rose by 3,000 yuan/ton, the average price reached 579,900 yuan/ton, continued to hit a record high; At the same time, the price of all grades of lithium hydroxide has increased, with the price of battery grade lithium hydroxide rising by 2,000 yuan per ton. Huaxi Securities said that the current time, is in the industrial chain is the most robust time of the year, combined with the seasonal production cut in Qinghai salt lake end in the third and fourth quarters and the maintenance arrangement of lithium salt plant, the supply is expected to be increasingly tight, do not rule out this winter battery grade lithium carbonate price to 600,000 yuan/ton above the possibility.

And lithium carbonate and other power battery raw material prices accelerated upward also directly leads to the price of waste power battery soared, the discount factor upside down. Powered battery recyclers told reporters that the discount coefficient (the ratio of scrap price to new shipment price) of some batteries was about 60 percent last year, but this year it has generally risen to more than 100 percent, and even some scrap prices have soared more than 200 percent.

And in the upstream raw material prices continue to rise, power battery recycling prospects can be expected under the dual drive, car companies have entered the bureau of mining billions of dollars track.

The price of battery recycling is soaring. Scrap is more expensive than new goods?

Power battery recycling price considerations mainly lie in the battery nickel, cobalt, manganese, lithium and other valuable metal content, generally speaking, according to the market price of nickel, cobalt, manganese, lithium and other metals discounted recovery. But at present, the power battery recovery has appeared obvious discount factor upside down phenomenon.

Li Peng (pseudonymous), a power battery recycler, said that this year, the price of power battery recycling is very high, the price of waste is rising, and there are obvious differences between different prices in different regions. The discount coefficient of waste lithium iron phosphate black powder rapidly increased from 70% to nearly 10%. The discount coefficient of some batteries (the ratio of scrap price and new goods price) was about 60% at the lowest last year. This year, the price of some wastes has soared by more than 200%. For example, the discount coefficient of scrap powder has soared to about 230%, all of which are purchased at a higher price.

Greenface has said that as metal prices rise, so will the price of battery recycling; It is known that the company has previously raised the price of recycled batteries to reduce the impact of rising raw material costs. In fact, at present, there is no clear pricing mechanism for power battery recycling in China, and there is a phenomenon that the irregular market adopts the way of bidding for battery recycling, showing the characteristics of the highest bidder, which further aggravates the situation of rising power battery prices.

Last year, the reporter consulted with a number of power battery recycling companies and recycling vendors and learned that the recycling price of lithium batteries was about 3000 yuan per ton at the beginning of last year. To July last year, the recycling price of lithium batteries was about 8000 yuan to 10000 yuan per ton, and some power battery recyclers gave more than 10,000 yuan per ton. This year, power battery recyclers say the high price of lithium battery recycling has soared to about 30,000 yuan per ton. This year has also seen the creation of separate pricing for lithium.

Mr. Tang, a power battery recycler, said that the price of power battery recycling by ton is divided into several situations, one is able to reuse, the other is the waste dismantlement, the price is not the same in different cases. However, with the price of power battery raw materials rising constantly, for power battery recyclers, recycling waste batteries is more to disassemble and get the raw materials.

True lithium institute founder Moke told reporters, "In the case of resource prices are not high, the main use of recycling waste power batteries is echelon use; "With the high price of resources, more recycling companies will be able to recycle batteries and disassemble raw materials."

At the same time, in the current booming power battery recycling market, the performance of power battery recycling industry chain companies has shown a state of continuous improvement. For example, in the first three quarters of this year, Green Mae recycled more than 12,000 tons of power batteries, a year-on-year growth of 130%. In the first three quarters, both revenue and net profit achieved double-digit growth.

Not only is the leading enterprises so, from the overall performance of lithium battery recycling concept stocks, the first three quarters of this year, lithium battery recycling concept stocks in the plate, 41 concept stocks in 30 to achieve substantial revenue growth; Twenty-one companies registered positive net profit growth in the first three quarters, 12 of which increased by more than 100 percent.

The amount of decommissioning this year may reach 200,000 tons. Can the waste be converted into raw material? The proportion of lithium obtained through recycling channels is still small

Wang Yao, assistant secretary general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers and director of the technology department, said that the price of upstream raw materials continues to rise sharply, and battery recycling companies can make profits by simply disposing of retired batteries and selling the precious metal materials in them, which leads to high demand for retired batteries. In addition, due to the incomplete recycling system of retired batteries, the small amount of recycling through formal channels, the imbalance of market supply and demand combined with the high expectation of the continuous rise of material prices in the future, recycling enterprises are willing to pay high prices to buy retired batteries.

In fact, the high price of power battery recycling is still driven by profit. Nickel-metal hydride batteries contain 35% nickel, 4% cobalt, 1% manganese and 8% rare earth elements. Lithium iron phosphate batteries contain 1% lithium, while ternary batteries contain 12% nickel, 5% cobalt, 7% manganese and 1% lithium. Zeng Yuqun, chairman of Ningde Times, has said that in Bang Pu, for example, the recovery rate of nickel, cobalt and manganese has reached 99.3%, and the recycling rate of lithium has also reached more than 90%. However, this argument is also disputed by other companies.

Nevertheless, the waste-to-material model is emerging. Waste for raw material means that recycling enterprises collect waste materials in the production process of battery factories and material factories in a directional way, extract nickel, cobalt, lithium and other metals, produce battery grade nickel, cobalt sulfate and lithium salt, and then return to the battery factory and material factory.

But does turning waste into raw material work? From the current overall situation of the industry, lithium obtained through the recycling channel in the power battery lithium supply accounts for a small proportion. On the other hand, despite the large number of retired power batteries, only 10-20% are actually recycled. However, Yu Qingjiao, secretary general of Zhongguancun New Battery Technology Innovation Alliance, said that in the future, battery recycling channels will become one of the main channels for nickel, cobalt, lithium and other resources supply, conservative estimates, after 2030, 50% nickel, cobalt, lithium and other resources from recycling is possible. So far, though, that stage has not arrived.

There is no denying that the wave of power battery retirement is approaching, and the blue Ocean market is accelerating. According to the company, 200,000 tons of power batteries will be retired in China by 2022. Tianfeng Securities said that under the neutral expectation, the total size of China's power battery recycling market is expected to reach 75.84 billion yuan in 2030. Among them, the market scale of echelon utilization reached 31.35 billion yuan, and the market scale of recycling reached 44.49 billion yuan. Under optimistic expectation, the total scale of retired power battery ladder and recycling market is expected to reach 104.89 billion yuan in 2030.

Car enterprise layout gold mining, capital to move

Citic Securities predicts that the market space of the global battery recycling industry will exceed 150 billion yuan in 2027.

In the face of the huge blue ocean market, new energy industry chain enterprises and all kinds of capital have heard the wind, and various strategic cooperation emerged in an endless stream. Battery factory, auto factory and other upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial chain are increasing the size of the layout.

At the end of October, Alchi Automobile, a new force in car making, reached a cooperation agreement with Tianqi and its participating company, Wangao (Shanghai) Automobile Technology Co., LTD., to promote the closed-loop of recycling and utilization industry. Not only are new car makers aiming at the power battery recycling market, but traditional car companies are also extending their tentacles to the power battery recycling industry chain. In July, LG New Energy and Huru Cycle reached a cooperation to establish a joint venture for battery recycling in China. The source of used batteries is LG New Energy's Nanjing plant. In May this year, BMW Group and Huayu Cycle reached a cooperation model to create a closed-loop recycling and echelon utilization of power battery materials. According to the information disclosed by BMW Group, closed-loop recycling of domestic electric vehicle power battery raw materials can be realized through cooperation between the two parties, and decomposed materials such as nickel, cobalt and lithium can be provided to BMW battery suppliers for the production of new power batteries, thus realizing closed-loop management of power battery raw materials.

In April this year, BYD set up a new company in Taizhou, the company involved in the recycling and reuse of used power batteries; As early as 2018, SAIC and Ningde Times have cooperated to promote the recycling of power batteries for new energy vehicles. Not only that, Volkswagen, Nissan, Honda, Volvo, Renault and other car companies also have power battery recycling layout.

In addition, power battery enterprises are also accelerating the layout of power battery recycling. For example, Ningde Times entered the power battery recycling circuit through Bang Pu. Guoxuan High-tech plans to invest 12 billion yuan to build a production base including upstream raw materials of power batteries and battery recycling. Guanghua Technology plans to invest 3 billion yuan in the construction of decommissioned power battery comprehensive utilization production line.

With the continuous development of the power battery recycling market, Wang Yao believes that the power battery recycling market should promote recycling legislation, clarify the main responsibilities of all parties, at the same time to improve industry access, continue to implement the "white list" management, encourage and support enterprises with strong recycling capacity to carry out recycling in an orderly manner.

Source: Beijing News by Wang Linlin