Expert warning! Global risk of lithium-ion battery disconnection

Posted 2021-07-20 00:00:00 +0000 UTC

Novel coronavirus pneumonia outbreak has caused a slowdown in the whole supply chain of lithium ion batteries and has endangered the production and use of products around the world, according to foreign media reports. Recently, BenchmarkMinonalIntelligence, a professional information provider in the lithium ion industry, released a report. Among them, Australia, as the main producer of lithium, requires members of the association of mining and exploration companies to pay strict attention to intercontinental travel restrictions; in South America, Chile has implemented a national ban, some parts of Santiago are in isolation, and Argentina has implemented isolation measures nationwide; in Africa, due to the closure of the border and port of South Africa, plus the producer country of raw material cobalt The supply of cobalt will be interrupted by the policy of fruit isolation. So far, although there is not much news about the significant supply shortage of battery raw materials or positive and negative materials, according to benchmark data, this is mainly due to the industry's oversupply in 2019, which just eliminated part of the inventory during this period. However, due to transportation restrictions and logistics delays, people in the global battery industry chain are worried about the supply of raw materials and the ability to deliver finished products to customers. From the upstream, Albemarle, a well-known lithium producer in the United States, said that the outbreak had a significant impact on the company's financial performance. It is expected that the first quarter profit will fall by 20% to 25% year-on-year, and the first half year profit will fall by 15% to 20% year-on-year, which is largely related to the logistics restrictions during the outbreak. Industry experts who focus on mining and energy research believe that global logistics will slow down with the outbreak, and enterprises may consider how to tighten the supply chain so as to obtain parts from closer places. At the same time, the trend of battery manufacturing localization and electric vehicle assembly localization of automobile manufacturers will be accelerated, which will "change the rules of the international logistics game". The anxiety of enterprises in the battery industry chain is not only in their single industry. These enterprises and individuals have enhanced their insight into the electric vehicle, battery storage, consumer technology industry and long-distance transportation during and after the outbreak.

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