Fluorine chemical product chain market is hot and cold

Recently, Sanmei Co., Ltd. announced that it plans to build 50,000 tons/year of lithium hexafluorophosphate and other projects; the IPO registration application of Zhongjuxin Science and Technology Innovation Board was approved, and the fundraising was mainly used for 30,000 tons/year of electronic grade hydrofluoric acid and other ultra-pure electronic chemicals projects. At the same time, the Wuchuan Fluorobarium New Material Industrial Park in Guizhou also announced that the main building of the 40,000-ton/year electronic-grade hydrofluoric acid phase I project has been capped. Compared with the situation in which the traditional refrigerant market of fluorine chemical industry continued to be cold in the first half of this year, the demand for terminal new energy vehicles has picked up and boosted the emerging downstream lithium hexafluorophosphate market of fluorine chemical industry, attracting frequent deployment of capital, and the fluorine chemical product chain market has shown uneven market conditions trend.

The traditional downstream peak season is not busy

"The peak season for refrigerant production is coming to an end, but the market is still in a slump." Zhang Chunjiang, a fluorine chemical manufacturer in Liaoning, said that usually March to June is the peak season for refrigerant production, and this year's peak season is the mainstream product The market price did not rise but fell.

Refrigerant is the industry with the largest proportion of downstream applications in the fluorine chemical industry, but its price has plunged rapidly during the peak production season this year, which has aroused a lot of attention and concern in the market. According to statistics from SunSirs, the average price of mainstream refrigerant products R134a on June 21 was 25,000 yuan (ton price, the same below), and R22 was 20,500 yuan, down 1.96% and 1.6% respectively from the first ten days of April.

The prices of mainstream products upstream of refrigerants are hardly optimistic. The average market price of chloroform on June 21 was 2,075 yuan, which was 18.62% lower than the average price in early April; the average market price of hydrofluoric acid on June 21 was 9,657.14 yuan, which was 6.76% lower than that in early April.

From the perspective of upstream fluorite in the fluorine chemical industry chain, due to safety, environmental protection and other reasons, the mining of upstream mines is still tight, and backward mines will continue to be eliminated. The shortage of raw materials limits the start of fluorite enterprises. In addition, the operating rate of hydrofluoric acid is about 60%, and there is still a rigid demand for fluorite procurement, which supports the fluorite market and the spot supply is tight. However, due to the sluggish demand in the downstream refrigerant market, the current price of fluorspar only rose slightly by 2.2% compared with the first ten days of April.

In the view of Huang Kan, a researcher at Western Securities, since the current refrigerant production season has entered the off-season, most of the air-conditioning manufacturers have reduced their production, coupled with insufficient refrigerant exports, the short-term price will continue to be weak. It is recommended that the market outlook continue to pay attention to the digestion of refrigerant stocks.

Emerging downstream bottomed out

Compared to the slump in the traditional refrigerant market, lithium hexafluorophosphate, a representative product emerging downstream of the fluorine chemical industry, bottomed out and rebounded in the second quarter of this year.

"Lithium hexafluorophosphate is a lithium battery solute widely used commercially at present." Zhang Chunjiang introduced that its upstream includes raw materials such as lithium carbonate, phosphorus pentafluoride, and hydrogen fluoride, and its downstream is mainly used to produce electrolytes for lithium batteries. New energy vehicles, energy storage batteries and other fields are emerging application fields in the fluorine chemical industry chain in recent years.

Since last year, the lithium hexafluorophosphate market has experienced a "roller coaster" market. Caixin Securities analyst Zhou Ce introduced that since 2023, the price of lithium hexafluorophosphate has continued to fall from a high of 590,000 yuan, falling by more than 78% as of the end of April this year. Since then, the price of lithium hexafluorophosphate has rebounded rapidly, from 127,500 yuan in mid-May to the current 162,500 yuan, an increase of 27.45% in the past month.

"The bottoming out of lithium hexafluorophosphate prices is closely related to the short-term surge in upstream lithium carbonate prices." Zhang Chunjiang and other people believe. According to data from Minsheng Securities Research Report, when the price of lithium carbonate is 500,000 yuan, the cost of lithium hexafluorophosphate is about 164,000 yuan, and the cost of lithium carbonate accounts for 76.1% of its total cost. Therefore, the price of lithium carbonate has a significant impact on the production cost of lithium hexafluorophosphate.

In the first four months of this year, the price of lithium carbonate fell sharply by more than 70%, and then rebounded strongly. SunSirs data shows that on June 22, the benchmark price of battery-grade lithium carbonate was 318,000 yuan, a sharp rebound of 63.92% from the low of 194,000 yuan in April this year. Driven by the cost side, the price of lithium hexafluorophosphate has bottomed out and rebounded, and the lithium carbonate market has begun to improve. Manufacturers believe that there is still room for price increases in the short term. At the same time, due to difficulties in purchasing raw materials for lithium hexafluorophosphate enterprises, short-term supply and demand mismatch and cost support, the price will also rebound significantly.

New energy vehicles boost confidence

The lithium hexafluorophosphate market has rebounded this time, and Zhang Chunbo believes that the deep-seated reason lies in the recovery of demand in the terminal new energy automobile industry.

Yin Pengfei, chief subject researcher of East Hi-Tech, agreed with this: "The support policies for new energy vehicles such as trams going to the countryside have a great effect on the expected increase in demand for lithium hexafluorophosphate." The notice of the New Energy Vehicles Going to the Countryside in 2019 is regarded as a "red envelope" distribution to the market, which has attracted widespread attention. Yin Pengfei believes that it is foreseeable that policies such as trams going to the countryside will start the second peak of car replacement in rural areas, and the demand release is expected to be strongly superimposed with the trams going to the countryside policy will increase the supply of new energy vehicles.

Lithium hexafluorophosphate is a key raw material for lithium battery electrolyte, among which the electrolyte used in the field of new energy vehicles accounts for the largest proportion, with a market share of 70%. Industry research shows that based on the current electrolyte ratio, about 90-110 tons of lithium hexafluorophosphate are needed to produce 1GWh ternary batteries, and about 125 tons of lithium hexafluorophosphate are needed to produce 1GWh lithium iron phosphate batteries. China National Finance Securities predicts that by 2025, the demand for lithium hexafluorophosphate as a key material for electrolytes will be 237,600 tons.

At present, the upstream and downstream of the new energy industry chain have strong expectations for the price of lithium hexafluorophosphate. Soochow Securities pointed out that the demand for new energy vehicle power batteries and energy storage will recover, while the inventory of midstream materials is extremely low, which will give rise to a strong demand for replenishment.

Industry insiders pointed out that capital is the most sensitive to the development trend of the industry, and has begun to deploy fluorine chemical new energy fields, indicating that the future application of fluorine chemical products will focus more on strategic emerging industries such as new energy and semiconductors. (Li Dongling)