On March 29, some media reported that at the seventh meeting of the 16th National People’s Congress of Xining City, a relevant spokesperson stated that Xining City’s lithium battery production capacity has reached the national total production capacity. One-third of the total, of which the output value of new energy and new materials increased by 17% year-on-year. For a time, "Xining Lithium Heat" became the focus of public opinion, and Qinghai was also regarded as the core strategic area for the development of new energy industry.
Possessing the resource advantage of “salt lake lithium extraction”, Qinghai Province has become the core area for the development of the lithium industry worldwide. Since 2015, Xining has entered the fast lane of lithium resource mining, energy storage and lithium battery production. Data show that as of 2020, Xining City's lithium battery cathode material production capacity will reach 60,000 tons/year, supporting the corresponding negative electrode materials, electrolytes, separators, and current collection materials; the power and energy storage cell production capacity will reach 20GWh. And equipped with 60,000 electric vehicles. By the end of this year, the entire lithium battery industry chain will be basically formed. The total output value of Xining City's lithium battery industry will reach more than 70 billion yuan, and more than 40 billion yuan of investment will be completed.
However, in this energy revolution in which lithium replaces oil, although the value of lithium has been clarified, "lithium extraction from salt lakes" has restricted the industry for many years due to technical bottlenecks. Now that the production and sales of the new energy vehicle industry are declining again, how should Qinghai, the "white oil kingdom", move forward?
1
"Xining Lithium Heat"
It must be said that the great importance of lithium resources has a great relationship with the development of new energy vehicles.
In 2016, the development of new energy vehicles in my country was boosted by policies, which led to the development of lithium-ion batteries. Data show that in the same year, the annual output of domestic lithium-ion batteries soared to 7.8 billion units, a year-on-year increase of 40%. The size of the global lithium-ion market has also continued to rise recently. As of December 2016, the scale of the global lithium battery industry reached 215.8 billion yuan, with a compound growth rate of 21 from 2011 to 2016. This has led many consulting companies to set the global lithium-ion battery market size target at 5 years/450 billion yuan. In the overall proportion, the size of my country's lithium-ion battery market is close to 300 billion yuan.
After segmenting the lithium battery industry, people found that it is exactly the same as the development of other energy industries, almost all of which are organized around the place of origin. It is understood that the upstream of lithium batteries is the mineral resources required for lithium battery materials; the midstream is lithium battery manufacturers, including the production of positive electrode materials, negative electrode materials, electrolytes, separators, conductive agents and adhesives; the downstream is mainly lithium batteries. Supporting application fields are currently known as consumer electronics, electric vehicles and industrial energy storage.
At this time, in order to boost my country’s dominant position in the development of the new energy industry, the National Development and Reform Commission linked 18 industrial plans to lithium resources in the “National Mineral Resources Planning (2016-2020)” and Lithium is one of the 9 minerals that need to be "reserved and protected" and one of the 24 strategic minerals.
Industry experts point out that the big wave of electrification in the global automotive industry has just arrived. If we look at the exit mechanisms for fuel vehicles in various countries, the demand for lithium batteries will be dozens of times higher than current market expectations. According to estimates that the electrification rate will reach 30% in 2025, the market space of the equipment industry will reach 700 billion yuan, with an average annual demand of 100 billion yuan
As the "base" of my country's lithium resources, Qinghai's proximity to water and unique resource advantages allow attention from the outside world. The data shows that Qinghai Salt Lake is rich in resources. There are 2 extra large salt lakes in Qinghai Province with reserves exceeding 10 billion tons, and 6 large salt lakes with reserves of 1-10 billion tons; more than 24 million tons of lithium chloride in salt lakes have been preliminarily proven, accounting for more than 90% of the country's proven reserves. Lithium resources account for 1/3 of the world's salt lake lithium resource reserves, ranking first in the country's lithium resource reserves
In order to develop the industry, the Qinghai Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government have proposed that the province's lithium carbonate production capacity will reach 120,000 by 2020 The planning target is around 1,000 tons, and the "Qinghai Province "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" New Materials Industry Development Plan" was formulated around this goal.
In order to further respond to the higher-level government, Xining City also issued the "Implementation Plan for Building a Hundred-Billion-Yuan Lithium Battery Industry Base in Xining City" at the same time, hoping to enhance the ability to transform the advantages of lithium resources by relying on the existing industrial base. And the construction of a comprehensive base for the production, processing and application of lithium battery industry has been included in the plan.
With the geographical advantages of materials and the boost of local policies, companies related to the lithium battery industry have begun to set up a presence in Xining as an established strategy. For a time, BYD, CATL, Great Wall, Midu Energy... hundreds of domestic and foreign companies have established their presence in Xining.
In just two years, Xining has a complete industrial chain of positive and negative electrode materials-separators-power batteries (energy storage batteries). During this period, Xining also introduced 12 cathode material production, battery production and thousands of supporting companies, including BYD Lithium Battery and Beijie New Materials. "Xining lithium fever" has become a topic of conversation for locals after dinner.
2
Lithium extraction from salt lakes finally achieved a breakthrough
The resource reserves are unique and the industrial layout is improving year by year. However, the development of Qinghai's lithium battery industry does not appear to be unstoppable. Advantages, the reason has a lot to do with the lithium extraction process.
It is understood that the lithium resources currently developed and utilized globally are divided into two categories: salt lake brine type and hard rock type. However, the proportions of the two at this stage are not equal. Industry experts point out that the utilization rate of hard rock mining is 40% higher than that of salt lake extraction. Data show that although the total global lithium resources are abundant, they are unevenly distributed, mainly in South America, Asia and Oceania, with high concentration in Chile, China, Argentina and Australia.
China is famous for its brine-type lithium ores, of which brine lithium ores account for about 67% of the domestic total, hard rock lithium ores such as spodumene ore and lepidolite account for about 33%, and spodumene ore accounts for about 33%. Mines are concentrated in Sichuan and Xinjiang, while lepidolite mines are mainly located in Jiangxi.
Since lithium resources often exist in nature in two paradigms: lithium ore and salt lake brine, the corresponding lithium extraction processes are divided into two categories, and both have their own advantages in extraction processes and extraction results. Although lithium ore has low impurity content, its mining cost is high and its reserves are small. Salt lake brine has large reserves, but the magnesium-lithium ratio in salt lake brine generally has a high magnesium-lithium ratio, many impurities, and is difficult to extract.
Lithium extraction by adsorption
A research institution affiliated with National Geographic of the United States once pointed out that global lithium resources are approximately 39.5 million metric tons, while the lithium reserves with commercial mining value are only 13.519 million metric tons. Under the current industry conditions, it is not a problem to use such lithium resources for more than 300 years. However, if there is explosive demand growth, with a usage of 800,000 tons per year, the lithium resources will be exhausted within 17 years.
Lithium Ore
Therefore, the lithium industry worldwide relies on "salt lake brine" to extract lithium. However, lithium in salt lakes is generally extracted from the old brine left after the production of sodium and potassium. Although the steps for extracting lithium from different types of salt lakes are the same (extracting lithium ions to produce lithium carbonate after evaporation, magnesium removal, and concentration), because salt lakes in China generally have a high magnesium-lithium ratio, additional lithium enrichment steps are required, which also makes the technology difficult. Was greatly upgraded.
In order to solve this problem, relevant companies and experts at home and abroad have tried every means to seek breakthroughs over the past 30 years. Some companies have even mastered the right to use patented technologies at the expense of company equity, hoping that It can extract high-purity lithium products that meet the needs of the international market from the high magnesium to lithium ratio salt lake brine in Qinghai, China.
Qaidam Basin Salt Lake
After several experiments, it was discovered that the lithium extraction process suitable for foreign salt lake brine was still unable to successfully separate high magnesium from the Qinghai Salt Lake with a high lithium ratio. Pure lithium products. In the early days of Qinghai's vigorous development of the lithium battery industry, the development of Qinghai's lithium battery industry was greatly restricted due to certain technical bottlenecks in low-cost lithium extraction.
The lithium resources in Qinghai Salt Lake were also compared to Loulan treasures buried in the desert.
3
How far is the lithium battery spring in Xining?
Fortunately, lithium extraction from salt lakes ushered in an industrial upgrade last year.
In June 2019, the Qinghai Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology stated that Qinghai Province’s salt lake lithium extraction technology had achieved a major breakthrough. In response to the problem that the magnesium-lithium ratio in salt lakes in the Qaidam Basin is generally too high and the magnesium-lithium separation technology is difficult, scientific researchers in Qinghai Province have effectively solved the problem of extracting high-magnesium-lithium from salt lakes with high magnesium-lithium ratios by using adsorption, extraction, calcination and other processes. The worldwide problem of pure lithium and boron has made Qinghai Salt Lake brine lithium extraction technology a world leader. The spring of technological development of liquid lithium is about to come.
Subsequently, the products of many leading companies in the province began to enter the supply chains of international new energy industry manufacturers such as Tesla, Samsung, Volkswagen, and BYD. For this reason, the industry expects that with the continuous breakthroughs in salt lake lithium extraction technology, the production capacity of lithium carbonate will be further released. By 2022, the market share of salt lake lithium extraction will exceed 50%, and the industry output value will reach more than 100 billion yuan.
However, the price and production capacity of lithium at this time experienced large fluctuations during this period.
In 2017, the price of domestic battery-grade lithium carbonate rose from 126,000 yuan/ton at the beginning of the year to 171,000 yuan/ton in October, with the highest increase reaching 47.54%. The increase in industrial-grade lithium carbonate Also reached 52.73%. However, since 2018, the price of lithium carbonate has been declining. As of 2019, the average price of domestic lithium carbonate is 125,000 yuan/ton, which has dropped 26.9% from last year's high.
At the same time, the development of domestic new energy vehicles has also changed. Affected by factors such as the substantial reduction in subsidies, the production and sales of new energy vehicles in 2019 were 1.242 million and 1.206 million, a year-on-year decrease of 2.3 and 4.0 respectively. Among them, the production of pure electric vehicles was 1.02 million units, an increase of 3.4% year-on-year; the sales volume was 972,000 units, a year-on-year decrease of 1.2%; the production and sales of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles were 220,000 units and 232,000 units respectively, a year-on-year decrease of 22.5% and 14.5%, respectively. Demand for lithium is also expected to be affected.
Power electricity?
We have to admit that the demand for lithium resources has been reduced by subsidies for new energy vehicles. Therefore, when car companies reduce their orders for lithium batteries accordingly, a reduction in demand for upstream lithium resources becomes inevitable. After all, the supply side of lithium resources has been affected by the huge release of new energy vehicle production capacity in the past few years, which has led to a surge in lithium resources such as lithium concentrates and raw ores at the most upstream of the industrial chain. Coupled with increased investment in industrial capital, the corresponding production capacity has begun to be released. . Now that demand has dropped, the profits of lithium sources are in crisis.
If according to previous predictions by industry insiders, the number of global cars in 2016 was 1.12 billion. If the number of cars in October 2025 is electric, there will be 112 million, based on 50-70 per car. Calculated per kilogram of lithium carbonate, 100 million electric vehicles consume 5 to 7 million tons of lithium carbonate.
Some analysts believe that in the next ten years, the annual growth rate of automobiles will exceed 10%. By 2025, the number of global automobiles will double to 2.2 billion, and the cumulative consumption of lithium carbonate will reach 10 million tons and reach 1,400 tons. Thousands of tons. But in the short term, due to the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic, which has caused industry setbacks and people's consumption desire to decline, as well as various factors such as the decline of subsidies and the decline in crude oil prices, the development expectations of new energy vehicles are bound to be compromised. This has also made Qinghai long for many years. "The spring breeze of lithium batteries" has become far away again.
This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.