Chinese companies have been raising prices of key raw materials for electric vehicle batteries such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel since November.
LG Energy Solution plans to increase the price of its cylindrical batteries (the 21700 model) for electric vehicles by 10 percent in January 2022. Samsung SDI also raised the price of cylindrical batteries by 8 percent in November. The price hikes are the result of sharp increases in prices of lithium, cobalt, and nickel compounds, which are provided by Chinese companies,” an industry insider said.
The price of lithium soared more than five times from 44 yuan per kg at the end of 2020 to 230.5 yuan per kg on Dec. 23. It rose 24.3 percent in the past one-month period, breaking an all-time high every day. Cobalt prices broke their three-year high of US$72,205 per ton on Dec. 23. Nickel prices also surpassed US$20,000 per ton in November for the first time in more than seven years since May 2014.
Analysts said that Chinese processors are selling minerals to Korean companies with excessive margins after purchasing mines in South America and Africa.
Lithium, a key raw material for cathode materials for secondary batteries, trades in yuan, the Chinese currency, not in U.S. dollars in the world market. Although 60 percent of the world’s lithium reserves are concentrated in the lithium triangles of Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina’s salt lakes, China is the No. 1 producer of lithium compounds used in secondary batteries, such as lithium...
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