More than 5 power battery companies are involved in upstream lithium mines

On the demand side, according to data from the China Geological Survey, the annual production of 2 million new energy vehicles will be achieved by 2020, and the consumption of lithium products will reach 80,000 to 100,000 tons of lithium carbonate equivalent, exceeding the national lithium product consumption in 2015. Under the premise that demand in other fields remains unchanged, the development of the new energy vehicle industry will lead to an average annual demand growth rate of 10% to 15%. It is expected that lithium demand will reach 150,000 tons of lithium carbonate equivalent in 2020.
On the supply side, Gaogong Lithium Battery has learned that the global lithium resource reserves are huge, but the supply shortage of battery-grade lithium carbonate is mainly due to two reasons:
One is that effective lithium ore supply is limited and slow. Lithium mines are monopolized by several leading companies such as SQM and FMC. In addition, it is difficult to mine lithium resources, the development of lithium extraction technology is slow, and effective supply is insufficient. At the same time, the consumption of lithium mines is much faster than the supply, so that the mining of lithium resources often lags behind the market demand. ;
Second, under the premise of sufficient lithium mines, there is a time lag in the release of new battery-grade lithium carbonate production capacity. Especially affected by various internal and external factors such as season, brine lithium suspension, and infrastructure construction, the release cycle of new production capacity has been extended. GGII analysts said that the capacity release cycle will take at least one and a half years.
Lithium carbonate went from less than 50,000 yuan/ton in early 2015 to 180,000 yuan/ton in 2016, which was difficult to pick up. Currently, lithium carbonate is still hovering at a high of 150,000 yuan/ton.
On the one hand, there is strong demand in the power battery market; on the other hand, the supply of lithium ore and lithium carbonate exceeds demand. The fundamental disconnect between supply and demand has become the fundamental reason for the frequent fluctuations and rising prices of lithium carbonate.