China to see boom in lithium carbonate production
----Interview with Qunxuan Yan
General Manager
Hunan Keyking Recycling Technology Limited
- Established in 2016, Hunan Keyking Recycling Technology Limited owns a registered capital of 70.49 million Yuan. The company mainly focuses on the disposal and recycling of waste lithium battery, power battery and waste products contain lithium, nickel and cobalt. It’s main products are battery grade lithium carbonate and NCM precursor. The company owns two factories in Leiyang and Changsha. They plan to invest 3 billion in their Leiyang factory for the production capacities of 25,000t of lithium carbonate, 20,000t of iron phosphate, 6,000t of lithium hydroxide and 50,000t of NCM precursor. They will invest 5 billion in their Changsha production base and plan to set up a production capacity of 30,000t of lithium carbonate and its related products.
- Asian Metal: Welcome to accept our interview, Mr. Yan. Please introduce your company and your main business briefly.
- Mr. Yan：It’s my honor to accept this interview. Keyking Recycling is one of the national high-tech enterprises, “little giant” enterprise and white list corporation of Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People's Republic of China. Our company mainly focuses on the disposal and recycling of waste lithium battery, power battery and waste products contain lithium, nickel and cobalt. Our main products are battery grade lithium carbonate and NCM precursor, which are core raw materials of new energy lithium battery. We own two factories in Leiyang and Changsha. We plan to invest 3 billion in our Leiyang factory for the production capacities of 25,000t of lithium carbonate, 20,000t of iron phosphate, 6,000t of lithium hydroxide and 50,000t of NCM precursor. We will invest 5 billion in our Changsha production base and plan to set up a production capacity of 30,000t of lithium carbonate and its related products. We own 40 authorized patents. We would try our best to develop our new energy industry and environmental protection.
- Asian Metal: What’s the most important technology in the production of lithium carbonate by recycling?
- Mr. Yan：There are so many key technologies in the lithium carbonate production by recycling, so we applied for more than 100 patents. We already gained 40 authorized patents till June 2023. Among these technologies, the most import technology is our unique one-step method, which contains high efficiency leaching technology and decontamination liquid deep purification technology. We choose the most efficient leaching liquor according to different component to improve the recycling rate to higher than 90%. We adopt the unique ion exchange and membrane separation technologies to reduce the content of calcium, magnesium, iron, manganese, aluminum in the liquidoid to lower than 1ppm. We could produce battery grade lithium carbonate directly without further purification or processing.
- Asian Metal：What’s the current China’s lithium carbonate production capacity? How about the output in 2022?
- Mr. Yan: Following with the rapid development pf new energy industry over the past years, the Chinese lithium carbonate market witnessed increased demand and production capacity. According to related data, China’s lithium carbonate production capacity and output in 2022 reached around 600,000t and 395,000t respectively. The output climbed by around 32.5% YoY.
- Asian Metal: How about the proportions of the output and the production capacity by recycling among the total lithium carbonate production capacity and output?
- Mr. Yan: According to related data, the total recycling volume of China’s waste lithium battery in 2022 reached about 300,000t, including battery, pole piece and black powder and new waste such as scraps and defective products produced in the battery production. These 300,000t of waste contain about 60,000t of lithium carbonate, which accounted for 14.8% of China’s lithium carbonate production capacity, including 18,700t of industrial grade lithium carbonate, 21,600t of battery grade lithium carbonate and 18,300t of crude lithium carbonate. In view of the explosive growth of new energy vehicles since 2020 and power battery’s actual service life of 5-7 years, we forecasted that the amount of waste battery and the proportion of lithium carbonate produced by recycling would increase sharply in the coming years and would reach the peak in around 2026.
- Asian Metal: What’s your prediction of China’s lithium carbonate output in 2023?
- Mr. Yan: In Q1 of 2023, some lepidolite producers in Yichun of Jiangxi halted production due to environmental rehabilitation. Some lithium carbonate producers with high production costs halted production as a result of sharply decreased prices. But productions of domestic salt lakes were relatively stable market and their output reached participants’ expectations. China’s lithium carbonate output from January to August 2023 reached about 292,500t. The average operating rate of Chinese lithium carbonate producers dropped to 42% in this April, which was the lowest rate from January to August 2023. It rebounded to around 61% in this August. Till late August of 2023, China’s lithium carbonate annual production capacity reached 700,000t. There were some projects were under construction. We predict that China’s lithium carbonate output would reach about 450,000t in 2023, around 70,000t of these products would be produced by recycling.
- Asian Metal: How about the current demand of lithium carbonate in China?
- Mr. Yan: China’s lithium battery industry owns strong competitiveness in the world at present. China is also the biggest consumer of lithium carbonate and our lithium carbonate output and consumption volumes climbed sharply over the past years. China’s lithium carbonate consumption volumes recorded around 184,000t, 256,400t and 520,700t respectively from 2020 to 2022 with a rapid growth. From January to May of 2023, China’s new energy vehicle production increased by about 30% YoY. The Chinese energy storage industry witnessed sharp growth. We forecasted that China’s lithium carbonate demand in 2023 would increase to 650,000-700,000t.
- Asian Metal：Lithium carbonate is mainly applied to LFP, LNCMO, LCO and LMO industries at present. Which industry do you see as the most promising one?
- Mr. Yan: LFP and LNCMO are the most prevalent anode material in domestic Chinese market now. China’s LFP And LNCMO accounted a total market occupancy of around 92.3% in 2022. I foresaw optimistic demand outlooks for LFP, LNCMO, LCO and LMO due to the rapid development of lithium battery industry. With the advantages of low production costs and high safety, LFP’s market occupancy gradually exceeded that of LNCMO over the past two years. In 2022, China’s LFP market occupancy was 25% higher than that of LNCMO. The proportion increased to 34.4% till August 2023. Given the increasing LFP industry chain, represented by BYD, the advantages and demand outlook of LFP would become more promising. We plan to increase our iron phosphate total production capacity in Leiyang and Changsha to 200,000t to meet the demand and to enrich our product categories.
- Asian Metal: How do you see the demand outlook of lithium carbonate in China in the coming 3-5 years?
- Mr. Yan: After several years’ rapid development, China’s new energy industry is mature at present. End products, such as new energy vehicles and energy storage products, have been recognized by more and more consumers and enterprises. Global lithium carbonate production increase mainly comes from China now. In addition, the domestic Chinese lithium carbonate market sees postive attitudes about the demand outlook. Therefore, both the supply and demand trend of lithium carbonate is optimistic. We predict that the waste power battery volume would start to increase by two times since 2026, which will lead increase proportion of lithium carbonate production by recycling.
- Asian Metal: The Chinese lithium carbonate 99.5%min market witnessed dropping prices in this Q1 and then the prices picked up in Q2. The prices dropped again in Q3 and slid to current RMB198,000-203,000/t (USD27,106-27,791/t) EXW D/A 180 days. How do you predict the price trends in this Q3 and Q4?
- Mr. Yan: The Chinese lithium carbonate prices fluctuated obviously so far this year, which brought challenges to all companies in the industry chain. Given the increasing production capacity of overseas suppliers, I don’t think lithium carbonate prices would move up as sharply as last year. In my opinion, the Chinese lithium carbonate mainstream prices would show slight downtrend in general in this H2 and would drop to around RMB150,000-200,000/t (USD30,535-27,380/t).
- Asian Metal: Please share your prediction of Chinese lithium carbonate price trends in the coming 3-5 years.
- Mr. Yan: I forecasted that the Chinese lithium carbonate prices would hover at RMB150,000-300,000/t (USD20,732-41,463/t) in the coming 3-5 years due to below reasons. Firstly, the lithium battery demand shows uptrend because the demand outlook of new energy vehicles and energy storage is promising. This will result in strong demand in the Chinese lithium carbonate market. Secondly, the climbing prices had attracted a lot of capital in the Chinese lithium carbonate market over the past two years. Many companies would expend production capacities in the coming 3-5 years, so it’s hard for lithium carbonate prices to climb higher than RMB300,000/t (USD41,463/t). But some new miners’ costs is high due to low content and other reasons, this will support lithium carbonate prices to hover at higher than RMB100,000/t (USD13,821/t). Thirdly, we predict that li
- Asian Metal: Thanks for your excellent sharing! Wish every success of your business!
- Mr. Yan: Thanks for your support! I also wish your company a better future! I believe you would provide best service and help to corporations in lithium industry!
