Since May, the cobalt price has corrected by nearly 20% or bottomed out
Introduction: Because the price of cobalt metal in the international market fell, the downstream manufacturers of cobalt metal in China are mainly wait-and-see, and the market turnover is relatively light. Last week, the average price of cobalt fell 6.2% month-on-month to 605 yuan/kg. The average price of cobalt sulfate decreased by 3.0% to 131,500 yuan/ton, and the price of other cobalt products ran smoothly.
Cobalt prices have fallen nearly 20 percent since May due to a lack of downstream orders. Industry insiders said that with the slow season of the power battery market gradually past, the operating rate of the downstream large cell plant will increase. Some car enterprises new models on the market, battery factories will enter the stage of replenishment of raw materials, cobalt prices or bottoming out.
Insufficient downstream orders
Last week, MB premium cobalt and lower cobalt edged down 0.7% and 0.6%, respectively, with prices retracting to $43.63 and $43.60 / lb.
Because the price of cobalt metal in the international market fell, the downstream manufacturers of cobalt metal in China are mainly wait-and-see, and the market turnover is relatively light. Last week, the average price of cobalt fell 6.2% month-on-month to 605 yuan/kg. The average price of cobalt sulfate decreased by 3.0% to 131,500 yuan/ton, and the price of other cobalt products ran smoothly.
Zhongtai Securities nonferrous metals analysts said, downstream real demand seasonally weak, some speculators choose to take profits. Since mid-April, the domestic cobalt price has fallen, and now it has adjusted about 20%, and the domestic and foreign cobalt prices are upside down.
According to Shanghai Nonferrous metal network research, the recent digital market is weak, orders in May continued to be weak, only a southern material factory said that the digital market orders are good. In terms of power market, cathode material manufacturers indicated that orders in May were weak from the previous month, especially lithium iron phosphate and lithium cobalt acid; The order situation of ternary material manufacturers is polarized. Enterprises with good orders are limited by their own production capacity, and the actual increment is limited, while ternary material manufacturers with insufficient orders have a significant decline in the demand for upstream raw materials.
Inventory levels are low
Huatai Securities (601688) on the domestic large traders, positive electrode and battery enterprises research shows that in the second quarter of 2018 raw material inventory dropped to a low level, and even appeared the phenomenon of ready-to-use; Traders attach importance to the liquidity of funds, it is difficult to form the situation of hoarding goods and price reduction. The inventory destocking started in the fourth quarter of 2017.
The sales volume of new energy vehicles in April was 82,000, a year-on-year increase of 138%; The sales volume from January to April was 225,000, up 149% year on year, continuing to maintain strong growth. Among them, the sales volume of new-energy passenger vehicles in April reached 73,000 units, up 31 percent from March and 150 percent year-on-year.
Zhongtai Securities nonferrous industry analysts said that an important change in the sales structure in April is A0 and A class electric vehicle sales increased significantly. It is expected that after the transition period of new energy subsidy policy, the newly listed models are mainly A0 class and A class electric vehicles, driving the demand growth of cobalt lithium.
Yutong and Jinlong successively announced that they received 5.86 billion yuan and 1.864 billion yuan of new energy vehicle promotion subsidies respectively at the end of April. The subsidies will be handed down as the previously sold buses reach 30,000 kilometers. This will help ease the carmakers' cash situation.
