Since the beginning of June, cobalt prices have ushered in the second wave of this year. In the New Third Board, several companies are located in the upstream and downstream of the cobalt industry chain. Since the rebound in cobalt prices since last year, these companies have already tasted the “sweetnessâ€.
Cobalt prices continue to rise
The data shows that the average price of metallic cobalt in the Yangtze River non-ferrous market has recently ushered in a wave of gains, rising from 357,500 yuan / ton in mid-May to 417,000 yuan / ton, an increase of 25%. Previously, cobalt prices have experienced a round of rising prices, from 273,000 yuan / ton at the beginning of this year to 405,000 yuan / ton in late March, an increase of 48%. After two rounds of market, the price of metallic cobalt has increased by 53% this year.
In addition to metallic cobalt, the price of cobalt salt, which is an important material for ternary batteries, is also rising. Anteco cobalt product quotation shows that cobalt trioxide has increased from 197,000 yuan / ton at the beginning of the year to the recent 372,000 yuan / ton.
In addition, some institutions have recently predicted that cobalt prices may usher in a new round of gains.
From the perspective of supply and demand, cobalt price hikes are mainly driven by two factors: First, the supply is tight, cobalt mines are mostly associated with nickel and copper deposits, and resources are scarce. China is the world's largest producer and consumer of cobalt salts, but China's cobalt reserves account for only about 1.1% of the world's total. China's cobalt raw materials are mainly imported from abroad.
Antaco's recently released cobalt weekly report shows that the supply of metallic cobalt in overseas markets is still relatively tight, and it is gradually transferred from high-grade cobalt to low-grade cobalt, and there is a situation in which all levels of metallic cobalt are in full supply.
Second, demand is rising. Cobalt is one of the most important materials for lithium batteries . In China, lithium batteries have become the main consumption area of ​​cobalt. With the rapid development of 3C and new energy automobile industry, the demand for lithium-ion batteries continues to rise, driving the demand for cobalt to increase year by year.
Professor Xu Aidong, Secretary General of the Cobalt Industry Branch of China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association and Principal Analyst of Antaike, believes that the current increase in cobalt prices is due to the increase in actual demand and the result of investment demand.
Renjian, a reagent salesman in Nanjing, the largest domestic producer of cobalt acetate, told reporters that the rise in cobalt prices was mainly driven by the rise in foreign cobalt prices. Recently, the international cobalt price has increased significantly. In addition, he believes that there are many speculations, and cobalt is used as a small metal. , easy to be hyped and manipulated.
Cobalt companies' performance has grown significantly
Since the cobalt price hit a record of 800,000 yuan / ton in 2008, the cobalt price has experienced a decline and has been running for many years. Many cobalt companies continue to lose money. This round of price increases has caused cobalt prices to climb to high levels in recent years. Affected by this, the performance of cobalt raw material enterprises has increased significantly since 2016.
In the New Third Board, the company that mainly produces cobalt raw materials is only Jinchuan Technology. Jinchuan Technology was listed on the New Third Board on May 11, 2016. It is mainly engaged in the research, development, production and sales of cobalt metal smelting and cobalt new materials. It is one of the major domestic producers of metallic cobalt and cobalt sulphate.
Since the end of last year, the price of cobalt has risen, and Jinchuan Technology has clearly benefited. The 2016 annual report shows that Jinchuan Technology's operating income was 2.104 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2%, but its net profit soared from 29.13 million yuan to 78.06 million yuan, an increase of 168%.
Jinchuan Technology said that since November 2016, due to the gap between supply and demand, the international and domestic cobalt market has risen rapidly, and the cobalt industry is facing major development opportunities. During the reporting period, due to the increase in cobalt prices, the revenue of its cobalt series products increased significantly. In 2016, cobalt products accounted for 87% of Jinchuan's operating revenue, compared with 67% in 2015.
For the future trend of the cobalt industry, Jinchuan Technology believes that the consumption demand of cobalt will gradually increase, further promoting the development of China's cobalt industry. Perhaps because of the confidence in the trend of cobalt market and its own performance, Jinchuan Technology has submitted the registration materials for listing counseling on January 11 this year, and entered the listing counseling period.
Jinchuan Technology adopts the method of agreement transfer, and has not been sold since its listing. Therefore, although the price of cobalt has increased recently, its share price is difficult to reflect. At the same time, the share price of major domestic listed cobalt companies has reached record highs.
Since June 2, Huayou Cobalt, one of the largest producers of cobalt products in China, has increased by nearly 60%; Hanrui Cobalt has also risen from 73.5 yuan to 115.1 yuan, just on July 7, Hanrui Cobalt Once again, the daily limit has reached a new high since the listing.
At the same time that the stock price skyrocketed, the listed cobalt companies are expected to significantly improve their performance in the first half of the year.
The 2017 semi-annual performance forecast released by Hanrui Cobalt Co., Ltd. shows that its net profit is expected to increase by 652%-682%, mainly due to the significant rebound in the price of cobalt products and the steady growth of cobalt production and sales. The first quarter report released by Huayou Cobalt also showed that the net profit for the reporting period was 251 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 820%, which was about 4 times of the full year 2016 net profit.
Recycling companies are expected to benefit
Due to the scarcity of cobalt metal, in addition to the direct production of cobalt products like Jinchuan Technology, there are also a number of cobalt resource recycling enterprises, mainly using electronic products, lithium batteries , waste liquids and other extraction of nickel, cobalt, etc., this round of cobalt prices rose, these companies also It is expected to benefit from it.
According to the statistics of the reporter, there are about 40 waste recycling enterprises in the New Third Board, of which about 5 are involved in cobalt recycling, such as Fangyuan Environmental Protection and Xien Technology.
Xi’an’s performance report released on July 4th showed that its operating income increased by 127% in the first half of 2017, and its net profit increased by 767%. The company said that the main reason is that new energy vehicles drove the rapid growth of demand for raw materials for ternary batteries. The company's production and sales increased, and the price of raw materials for the three yuan rose steadily.
The secretary of the board of directors of Sean Technology told the reporter that although the company's current cobalt production is not large, the rise in cobalt prices is still good news for the company.
The director said that the pricing of cobalt-containing wastes acquired by the company is affected by multiple factors. Generally, according to the comprehensive pricing of cobalt content, impurities and extraction difficulty, the price increase of cobalt products may lead to the increase of cobalt-containing waste residue, but it is not the most sensitive. Factors; the company's cobalt products are fully priced according to market prices, therefore, the rise in cobalt prices to a certain extent is conducive to the company's product price increases.
The reporter found that GEM, a listed company that also engages in waste batteries and electronic waste to extract cobalt, increased its net profit by 54% in the first quarter of this year. Since June 2, its share price has risen more than 30%.
It is worth noting that in the case of scarcity of cobalt resources in China, the above-mentioned cobalt recycling enterprises have an advantage that the cobalt content of used batteries is much higher than that of most mines.
The Sean Technology Annual Report shows that the average cobalt content in the ternary battery is 2.3%. Compared with most domestic cobalt mines, the waste battery is undoubtedly a “cobalt rich mineâ€. Sean Technology believes that the market for extracting cobalt, nickel and other metals from waste lithium batteries will start in 2018, with a scale of 5.2 billion yuan. In 2020, this market will reach 13.6 billion yuan.
Xu Aidong told reporters that the cobalt content in the secondary materials is indeed much higher than that of the mine. Previously, due to the low price of cobalt, it was not economical to extract cobalt from secondary materials. Now the price of cobalt is rising, and the development of new energy vehicles may form in the future. industry. However, due to the immature recycling channels, the amount of cobalt extracted from secondary materials is still small.
Fangyuan Environmental Protection also said that China's waste recycling cycle system is still not perfect, resulting in a considerable part of the abandoned resources can not achieve fixed-point collection, professional recycling, and adversely affect the development of enterprises.
Cobalt price trends are divided
How long can this cobalt price increase last? Will the price of cobalt continue to rise in the future?
The reporter found that most companies and institutions are optimistic about the price of cobalt. The main reason is that with the rapid development of the new energy automobile industry, the demand for cobalt will increase substantially. Second, the global cobalt production growth will slow down, which may lead to Cobalt prices continue to rise.
However, there is also a relatively cautious view in the market. According to the “California and Precious Metals Market Weekly Review†issued by the marketing department of Jinchuan Group, in the market, the recent cobalt products such as cobalt, cobalt sulphate and cobalt sulphate are all very light, while in the ternary materials. On, the big factory price is stable and the shipment is normal.
The report pointed out that the current round of international cobalt prices rose slightly "under-effort", the domestic downstream low-willing to accept high prices, the market turnover is light, the risk of high cobalt callback is expected to increase.
From the perspective of supply and demand balance, Antaike had expected that the global supply and demand of cobalt in 2017 may have a supply gap of 4,800 tons, the largest increase still coming from the battery field. However, Xu Aidong told reporters that according to the current actual situation, if the investment demand is not considered, it is expected that there will be no shortage of cobalt supply and demand in 2017.
Taking the battery field with the largest amount of cobalt in China as an example, Xu Aidong said that although the prospect of new energy vehicles is very good, the amount of cobalt will definitely continue to rise, but the current consumption of cobalt is still dominated by the 3C field. In the future, with the advancement of technology, the cobalt required for every 10 million hours in the power battery will gradually decline, so the growth rate of cobalt consumption may not be as fast as imagined.
Ren Xinjian told reporters that although there has been a large increase in cobalt prices in the near future, there are still many stocks in the market. Many people have previously had inventory costs of more than 500,000 yuan/ton, so even if the current price rises, they are still losing money. Future prices continue to rise, and this part of the inventory may be able to stabilize the price.
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