Since 2021, the price of lithium iron phosphate (lifepo4) battery cathode materials has continued to soar. The price of lithium iron phosphate (power type) at the beginning of the year has not yet reached 40,000 yuan/ton. By the end of December, the price of lithium iron phosphate (lifepo4) battery has exceeded 110,000 yuan / ton, an overall increase of more than 170% throughout the year, and the price hit a new high in three years.
Moreover, the current price of lithium hydroxide, the raw material of high-nickel ternary battery, has been surpassed by lithium carbonate, the raw material of lithium iron phosphate (lifepo4) battery. As of December, the price of battery-grade lithium carbonate is between 280,000 yuan/ton and 290,000 yuan/ton. , the price of lithium hydroxide is about 230,000 yuan / ton, it can be seen that the suppressing effect of lithium iron phosphate (lifepo4) batteries on ternary materials has been reflected from the source.
From the perspective of more intuitive shipments, my country's lithium iron phosphate (lifepo4) battery cathode material shipments will only be 124,000 tons in 2020, and the total production capacity of lithium iron phosphate (lifepo4) battery material manufacturers will exceed 250,000 tons. In 2021, benefiting from the high prosperity of lithium iron phosphate batteries, the shipments of lithium iron phosphate (lifepo4) battery materials have increased significantly. The shipments in the first half of this year alone have exceeded that of the whole year of 2020, reaching 178,000 tons. Demand has also inspired major manufacturers to start expanding production.
In the face of this big cake, new players will also begin to fully enter the field of lithium iron phosphate (lifepo4) battery cathode materials in 2021 by cooperating with downstream manufacturers of lithium batteries, or by investing in related companies, and have carried out various degrees of phosphoric acid. Capacity planning of cathode materials for lithium iron (lifepo4) batteries.
At present, by 2025, the overall planned production capacity of lithium iron phosphate (lifepo4) battery cathode materials has exceeded 4.5 million tons, and this year, the production capacity of lithium iron phosphate (lifepo4) batteries is about 900,000 tons, which is still compared to 2020. In the case of a huge increase in production capacity of 320,000 tons. This report attempts to dissect two important issues:
(1) Who are the new players entering the game of lithium iron phosphate? Where is the bottom line?
(2) Facing challenges, what are the competitive advantages of old players of lithium iron phosphate?
01
What is the confidence of the new players entering the game?
From the overall situation in 2021, the new players in the lithium iron phosphate cathode material industry mainly include two categories: one is enterprises in the ternary cathode material industry, and the other is enterprises in the phosphorus chemical industry and titanium dioxide industry. It has the confidence to enter the lithium iron phosphate industry.
Since ternary cathode material manufacturers are players in the lithium battery industry chain, the technical barriers to superimposing lithium iron phosphate are not high, so whether their own lithium iron phosphate products are recognized by downstream enterprises, or whether they are converted or built to produce iron phosphate In terms of lithium products, they can be achieved in a relatively short period of time and have certain advantages.
Although companies in the traditional chemical industry have no experience and technology in the field of lithium batteries, they have outstanding advantages in raw material sources, processing technology, and cost control. Lithium iron phosphate is mainly composed of lithium carbonate and iron phosphate. The production chain is Phosphate rock-high-purity phosphoric acid/industrial monoammonium phosphate-iron phosphate, and phosphorus chemical companies have phosphate rock, phosphoric acid, monoammonium phosphate and other products, which can effectively reduce the cost of phosphorus sources, realize the integration of the industrial chain, and even continue to extend to the downstream lithium iron phosphate battery;
Titanium dioxide enterprises also have obvious cost advantages due to their own resources of ferrous sulfate and waste sulfuric acid (1 ton of titanium dioxide produced by the sulfuric acid method can produce 3.5 to 4 tons of ferrous sulfate as a by-product).
02
Facing challenges, what are the advantages of old players?
Previously, the old players of lithium iron phosphate cathode materials were mainly core enterprises that devoted themselves to lithium iron phosphate cathode materials. Facing the challenges and confidence of new players, old players actually had their own advantages.
These professional lithium iron phosphate enterprises each have their own R&D technologies with obvious advantages. Due to the low cost, the mainstream production process route of lithium iron phosphate cathode materials in the market is the phosphate railway line, which is also the main process adopted by new players.
However, these professional companies have developed differentiated processes for preparing lithium iron phosphate with better performance, such as Defang Nano's liquid phase method + ferric nitrate process, Fulin Seiko's ferrous oxalate process, etc. These new processes output Its products have higher cost performance and are more favored by downstream battery manufacturers.
Therefore, despite the influx of new players, their main processes are iron phosphate processes. This is also because the cost of phosphoric acid in iron phosphate is relatively high (about 40%), so there are phosphorus source iron source enterprises or phosphorus chemical enterprises. Raw materials, the cost advantage is obvious, and the competitiveness will be strong in the future when the production capacity of iron phosphate is greatly expanded;
However, this phosphoric acid extraction process is a mainstream process, so the differentiation of products is not large, and the performance advantages are not obvious. Compared with the unique process of professional companies, the disadvantage is not small, and the competition between each other can only be won by reducing prices.
In addition, it is worth mentioning that some chemical companies enter this field not to really expand the production of lithium iron phosphate, but have different considerations.
Under the background of double carbon, the current state approval for the production capacity expansion of monoammonium phosphate and diammonium phosphate for enterprises in the phosphate rock industry is relatively strict. New production capacity; similarly, titanium dioxide enterprises are also faced with the production capacity that the state does not approve of titanium dioxide, but the production capacity of lithium iron phosphate is likely to be approved, and then the sulfuric acid and other products of these enterprises can be released. , used to make lithium iron phosphate.
03
Summarize
New players can quickly enter the lithium iron phosphate industry by relying on the advantages of the integration of upstream raw materials, and are expected to occupy a certain demand share of power batteries for low-end new energy vehicles through cost advantages, but the technical barriers of old players themselves are still there.
In particular, the lithium iron phosphate cathode material produced by a unique process other than the mainstream phosphoric acid extraction process has better performance, meets the needs of high-end new energy vehicles, and is recognized by first-tier battery manufacturers in the middle and lower reaches.
