Three lifepo4 battery leading "all go" overseas

"Whoever goes overseas is the hero of the company." Under the tide of the sea, the three major lifepo4 battery manufacturers have made efforts.

The so-called 30 years of Hedong, 30 years of hexi, the lithium iron phosphate battery that was once not optimistic, is now reverting to become the "sweet cake" of the mobile storage market.

In the domestic market, the installed capacity and production and sales of lithium iron phosphate batteries continue to lead the ternary batteries. From January to August this year, the cumulative load of lithium iron phosphate batteries was 206.2GWh, accounting for 70.6% of the total load; Production and sales volume were 446.9GWh and 286.9GWh respectively, accounting for 71.7% and 63.9% of the total production and sales volume respectively. In the international market, mainstream enterprises have further "tilted" to lithium iron phosphate batteries. For example, Tesla, BMW and other international car companies clearly want to carry a wide range of lithium iron phosphate batteries, LG New Energy, Samsung SDI, SK On, ACC and other overseas battery companies announced that they will layout lithium iron phosphate battery technology. It can be determined that under the two-way drive of the power and energy storage market, the demand for lithium iron phosphate batteries will be further improved. Starting Research Institute (SPIR) data show that it is expected that by 2030 the global market demand for lithium batteries will exceed 5100GWh, of which lithium iron phosphate battery demand will reach 3000GWh. To produce 1GWh lifepo4 battery requires 2,200 tons of lithium iron phosphate material calculation, by 2030, the global market demand for lithium iron phosphate materials will exceed 6.6 million tons. In the face of such a huge market demand, the pace of China's lithium battery industry chain to the world is also accelerating. According to the starting point lithium battery observation, the current domestic enterprises in the overseas market has carried out a full range of layout, involving upstream lithium ore, positive and negative electrode materials, electrolyte, diaphragm, copper foil and other fields. Among them, only the lithium iron phosphate anode material end, this year there are three major head enterprise officials announced the progress of the bureau.

01 Wanrun New Energy "explore" the US market recently, and the open layout of the enterprise is Wanrun New Energy. On September 23, Wanrun New Energy announced that it planned to set up a project company in the United States through a series of wholly-owned subsidiaries to layout lithium iron phosphate material projects. Specifically, Wanrun New Energy Technology (USA) Limited will be established in Delaware through its wholly-owned subsidiary Wanrun New Materials. Through the latter, WrestoreTechnology LLC (Riseda Technology Co., LTD.) was eventually set up in South Carolina, USA, and Riseda Technology carried out the "Wanrun New Energy positive electrode materials and its industrialization research and development Center Project". The announcement shows that the initial investment of the project is 168 million US dollars, and the annual output of 50,000 tons of lithium iron phosphate will be planned to be built in stages, and the first phase is planned to build 9,000 tons/year of lithium iron phosphate production capacity. The total planned construction period of the project is about 30 months, and it is planned to be fully put into production in 2028. In the later stage, the company will gradually expand production capacity in a timely manner according to the development of this project and the demand of overseas markets. The planned land for this project has included reserved land for capacity expansion and construction of supporting public auxiliary facilities in the later stage. At the same time, Wanrun Xinneng reminded that the investment project is located in the United States, affected by local policy environment, industry policy, production and business environment and other factors, there are certain risks; Matters related to the investment and construction of the project still need to go through the approval of relevant government departments, there is a certain uncertainty, and the implementation of the project may be delayed, changed, suspended or terminated. Starting Research Institute (SPIR) data show that Wanrun New energy is the world's top 4 lithium iron phosphate shipments of enterprises, shipments in the first half of this year reached 78,000 tons, an increase of 24.16%, the main supply customers include Ningde times, BYD, Zhongchuang Aviation, billion Wei lithium energy and so on. In terms of performance, Wanrun Xinneng's operating income in the first half of this year was 2.948 billion yuan, down 48.97% year-on-year; Net profit attributable to mother was -404 million yuan, up 51.79% year on year; Net profit deducted from non-return to mother was -415 million yuan, an increase of 51.39%. In terms of production capacity, Wanrun New Energy fundraising project "Hongmai High-tech high-performance lithium-ion battery material Project" has been put into operation and achieved external sales; 120,000 tons/year lithium iron phosphate and 240,000 tons/year iron phosphate capacity have been commissioned and produced; Hubei base "annual output of 100,000 tons of Hubei Wanrun new energy battery cathode material project" has been completed and put into production. The industry expects that by the end of 2024, its total production capacity may reach 360,000 tons, the annual shipment is expected to be 200,000-250,000 tons, and the capacity utilization and space to be digested are large.

Hunan Yuleng, Spain, as the world's lithium iron phosphate leader, has ranked first in the industry for four consecutive years. On the way to the sea, Hunan Yuleng is more "conservative", and the first choice is Spain, which has a relatively stable international environment, obvious geographical advantages, and is the second largest automobile producer in Europe. On April 19 this year, Hunan Yu Neng issued a foreign investment announcement, planning to set up an investment company in Singapore, and set up a project company in Spain by the investment company, through the project company to invest in the construction of an annual output of 50,000 tons of lithium battery cathode material project. The project, with a planned total investment of about 982 million yuan (about 129 million euros), is located in Spain's Extremadura region and the construction period is 15 months. According to the latest news, Hunan Yuleng has set up a Singapore company, and is stepping up the relevant approval work in the early stage of the project, but it has not yet started construction. In fact, there is another important reason behind Hunan Yuleng's layout in Spain, that is, some customers and potential customers have established production bases or related plans in Europe, and the company can further support nearby. As we all know, Ningde Times and BYD are both shareholders of Hunan Yuleng, but also its main customers. The two companies also have plans for Spain. In November last year, Ningde Times signed a memorandum of understanding with Stellantis Group, and Ningde Times will supply lithium iron phosphate battery cells and modules to Stellantis Group in Europe. This year, the Stellantis Group is looking for a site for the fourth battery factory in Europe, and plans to cooperate with Ningde Times, which is expected to be located in Spain; Byd, not only opened up electric passenger cars and energy storage business in Spain, and in April last year, it was reported that BYD was considering building a new battery gigafacion in Spain. In addition, Vision Power and Guoxuan Gaoke are also laying out in Spain, and there may be cooperation with Hunan Yuleng in the future. From the performance point of view, Hunan Yuleng's current main revenue sources are concentrated in the domestic. In the first half of 2024, Hunan Yuleng achieved revenue of 10.782 billion yuan, a decrease of 53.48% year-on-year; Net profit was 389 million yuan, down 68.57% year-on-year; Non-net profit was 380 million yuan, a decrease of 68.82%. Among them, the shipments of phosphate anode materials reached 309,400 tons, accounting for more than 98% of revenue. By region, revenue mainly comes from East, South, Central and Southwest China, and overseas revenue is not mentioned. The industry expects that with the release of production capacity of Hunan Yuleng overseas base, its overseas performance will become the main growth point.

03 Changzhou Lithium Source Indonesia project has been put into production Changzhou Lithium Source, controlled by the listed company Longpan Technology, is also the world's TOP lithium iron phosphate manufacturers. From the perspective of overseas layout progress, Changzhou Lithium Source is the first domestic company to land large-scale lithium iron phosphate anode material factories overseas. In November 2021, Longpan Technology issued an announcement announcing that Changzhou Lithium Source will lay out a lithium iron phosphate production base in Indonesia. It is reported that the project plans to invest 290 million US dollars (about 2.08 billion yuan), planning the total annual capacity of lithium iron phosphate material 120,000 tons. In April this year, its Indonesian lithium iron phosphate plant phase I 30,000 tons has been put into production. In addition, Lopan Technology also submitted an application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange last year to list H shares, and the financing will be used to build the second phase of the Indonesian factory. With the layout of Hunan Yuleng, the layout of Changzhou lithium source in Indonesia is also closely related to its major customer LG New Energy. In 2023, Changzhou Lithium Source signed a memorandum of cooperation with LG New Energy, and then in February this year, Changzhou lithium Source obtained a five-year 160,000 tons of lithium iron phosphate long order from LG New Energy, such as according to the market price estimate at that time, the total amount of the agreement exceeded 7 billion yuan. In Indonesia, LG New Energy and Hyundai Motor's joint venture power battery factory was officially put into operation in July, with an annual capacity of 10GWh. At the same time, the two sides also plan to start construction of a second battery plant, with an estimated investment of $2 billion, to add another 20 GWH of battery capacity. In addition, for the lithium iron phosphate battery speed, LG new energy has also begun to layout. In July this year, it won an order from Renault Ampere together with Ningde Times. LG New Energy will provide 39GWh of lithium iron phosphate battery products and will start supplying them by the end of 2025. In the view of starting lithium power, Changzhou lithium Source will directly use Indonesia's production capacity to support customers such as LG New Energy, which is of great benefit to its reduction of tariff impact and saving production and transportation costs.

It is worth mentioning that in the performance data of Longpan Technology, lithium iron phosphate showed a strong growth trend. The semi-annual report shows that from January to June, its lithium iron phosphate business achieved a revenue of 2.476 billion yuan, a loss of 480 million yuan compared with the same period last year. Revenue in the second quarter was 1.607 billion yuan, up 84.9% from the previous quarter. The market expects that Changzhou lithium source is about to go out of the trough, and with the delivery of orders at home and abroad, there is the possibility of profit in the second half of 2024.

Although the total balance will have a positive impact on the performance of the enterprise, the cost and risk that the enterprise needs to bear will be greater. The first is the input cost, to build a factory overseas, need a lot of capital; Then there is the time cost, from land acquisition to construction to production, it takes 2-3 years; The second is the risk of environmental policy, the trade environment and rules of overseas markets are changing rapidly; Finally, consider whether the customer market is stable. Therefore, in the choice of going to sea, companies should be careful.