The word "involution" is a perfect term to describe today's building ceramics industry. The building and ceramics industry has entered the "era of small profits" from the past "era of huge profits", coupled with the factors of weak market demand. In order to seize customer flow, dealers are "involved" in product prices, marketing methods, etc., even if they lose money. , and thus impulsively plunged into destructive competition.
Under such vicious competition, more and more ceramic companies realize that if they do not make changes, they will eventually be eliminated by the market, so they are looking for new ways out. Among them, switching to lithium battery production has become the most popular choice for Jiangxi ceramic enterprises. Up to now, more than 35 ceramic production lines in Jiangxi production areas have been approved for technical transformation projects to upgrade lithium slag blank production lines this year.
The total investment exceeds 780 million yuan
35 ceramic tile production lines converted to produce lithium batteries
Since the beginning of this year, driven by the strong drive of the electric vehicle and power battery industries, the demand for lithium batteries has increased rapidly, while the overall production capacity of the industry has been tight, which in turn has pushed the price of lithium batteries to continue to rise.
The person in charge of a ceramic company in Gao'an said that a company that rents and purchases Gao'an ceramics companies to switch to lithium batteries can recoup more than 20 million yuan in rental costs in one or two months after it is put into production. The previous semi-annual report of Keda Manufacturing also revealed information about the high profitability of the lithium battery industry. Its subsidiary Lanke Lithium Battery had a net profit of 3.685 billion yuan. It’s really hard not to be excited about ceramics.
Up to now, a total of 16 ceramic companies and 35 production lines in Jiangxi production areas have been approved for registration and approval. Sixteen ceramic companies, Huanbao Ceramics, Porcelain General Ceramics, Ruifuxiang Ceramics, and Gaoan Bode Ceramics, with an investment amount of more than 780 million yuan, relied on the original ceramic tile production lines to transform into "lithium slag blanks", "lithium battery materials" and "lithium slag pink".
Ruifuxiang Ceramics’ “annual output is 49.5The total investment amount of the "Technical Improvement of 10,000-ton Lithium Slag Billet Production Line" project is 50 million yuan. Relying on the original 136,000 square meters of factory buildings, the two existing ceramic kiln production lines will be upgraded to a lithium slag billet production line with an annual output of 495,000 tons. Technical renovation project.
Cijiangjun Ceramics' "Lithium Battery Material Production Line Technical Transformation Project" has a total investment of 240 million yuan. Relying on the original 22,890 square meters factory building, the original antique brick production lines with an annual output of 6 million square meters will be transformed into two antique brick production lines with an annual output of 500,000 tons. Lithium battery material production line.
Yifeng Jinfo Ceramics’ “Technical Transformation Project for a 2 Million Ton Roasted Lithium Slag Production Line” has a total investment of 102 million yuan. It will transform 1 Siwa production line and 2 polished tile production lines to produce roasted lithium slag. The transformation content This includes updating ball mills, spray towers, screening machines and presses, and adding new extension processes.
Except for the Jiangxi production area, there has been no news of converting production lines to produce lithium batteries in other production areas. The wave of "ceramic companies switching to lithium battery production" in Jiangxi production areas is related to the region's rich mineral resources. A large number of well-known lithium battery companies such as CATL and Guoxuan High-Tech have also taken a fancy to Jiangxi's mineral resources and have invested in building and expanding production bases there to accelerate the layout of the local new energy industry chain.
Hongyu Group, Dow Technology, Keda Manufacturing...
Qiqibu plays the "first move"
In addition to the above-mentioned Jiangxi ceramic companies, Hongyu Group, Dow Technology, Keda Manufacturing, Zhongpeng, China Ceramics Materials and other companies have also invested a lot of money to enter the lithium battery materials and lithium battery production equipment market.
On March 20, Lanzhou New District and Hongyu Group held a "cloud signing" ceremony for a 200,000-ton anode material project. The total investment in the project reached 5.3 billion yuan. The 200,000-ton graphitization device and 200,000-ton anode material project signed this time have a total investment of 5.3 billion yuan and cover an area of about 2,000 acres. When the project reaches full production, it can achieve an output value of more than 8.5 billion yuan.
On August 31, the Guangdong Zhongpeng Lithium Battery Materials Intelligent Equipment Industrial Park’s “land acquisition and construction start” ceremony was held in Danzao Town, Nanhai District, Foshan City. Guangdong Zhongpeng New Energy Technology Co., Ltd. is Guangdong ZhongpengInvestment in Thermal Energy Technology Co., Ltd., a well-known kiln company in the ceramics industry. According to official news from Zhongpeng, the company was founded in 2017 and focuses on the development and manufacturing of advanced, stable, efficient and low-carbon lithium battery material sintering equipment and automated sagger handling systems, providing the world with leading lithium battery material sintering systems and solutions. The industrial park covers an area of 30 acres (Phase II), with a total planned investment of 500 million yuan in the first and second phases. The completed factory will serve as the listing headquarters of Guangdong Zhongpeng, and will build smart factories and dust-free workshops. It will become the largest in the world. Lithium battery material sintering intelligent equipment production base.
As early as 2016, Dow Technology invested in the lithium battery material market through mergers and acquisitions, fully controlling Guangdong Jiana and Qingdao Haoxin, and also began to invest in the construction of lepidolite projects in Jiangxi. On March 10 this year, Dow Technology released the "Announcement on Subsidiary Wuhu Jiana's Introducing Strategic Investors to Increase Capital and Related Transactions" revealing that it plans to introduce strategic investors and establish a senior management team shareholding platform to invest in Wuhu Jiana will increase capital and shareholdings. Upon completion, it will form three major ternary precursor production and manufacturing bases: "Yingde (Guangdong) + Longnan (Jiangxi) + Wuhu (Anhui)", expand market share, and promote "ternary precursors and The realization of the strategic goal of "entering the leading position in the industry in its supporting business".
Coincidentally, China Ceramics Materials also focused on lithium battery separator coating as a key market in 2016. Mentioning the future development direction, China Ceramics Materials stated that the company plans to gradually expand the production capacity of high-purity ultrafine alumina to 30,000 tons/year and boehmite production to 100,000 tons/year within three years. The expansion project will be based on market conditions. It will be carried out gradually in phases and batches.
Keda Manufacturing, which has already made a lot of money in the lithium battery industry, is also actively investing in building new production capacity. Recently, Anhui Keda Lithium Battery, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Keda Manufacturing, signed a project contract with Fujian Keda New Energy Technology Co., Ltd. for an "annual output of 10,000 tons/year negative electrode material pretreatment line and 40,000 tons/year negative electrode material finished product line". It mainly includes the negative electrode material raw material storage yard, negative electrode material pretreatment workshop, granulation pre-carbonization workshop, comprehensive auxiliary workshop, pneumatic transportation, negative electrode material finished product workshop related process equipment and public engineering systems. The project is located in Datian County, Sanming City, Fujian Province. It is expected to It will be put into production in December 2022.
It can be said that both the production supporting companies in the upstream of the building ceramics industry and the ceramic companies in the downstream of the industry are investing in lithium battery-related tracks. However, behind the madness, many investors have predicted that there will be obvious overcapacity in the lithium battery industry within three years.
Is lithium battery investment an opportunity or a trap?
Some people in the industry have said this: "The waves of the industry rise and fall. There is no unreasonable expansion and rise, and there is no unreasonable surplus elimination." Behind the hot lithium battery investment, there may be a crisis of overcapacity. , the “slate craze” in the past two years is a vivid example. Many ceramic companies are rushing to switch to lithium battery production. Is it a guaranteed profit-making business, or is it an investment trap?
In addition to ceramic companies, there are many other industries that have taken a fancy to lithium batteries. According to an in-depth analysis of the current situation of China's lithium battery industry and a future investment research report, since 2018, a total of 104 investment events have occurred in the lithium battery industry, including 90 domestic investment events and 14 overseas investment events, including Sequoia China, Shenzhen Venture Capital, Dozens of VC/PE institutions including IDG Capital, Hillhouse Ventures, Legend Capital, Primavera Capital, Cathay Capital, Lightspeed China, SoftBank China, etc., as well as CATL, Great Wall Motors, Xiaomi Yangtze River Industry Fund, Guangdong Industrial funds such as investment capital have extended their tentacles to the battery track. The investment in lithium battery production expansion in 2021 alone will exceed 600 billion yuan. It is enough to see the enthusiasm of many companies for investing in the lithium battery industry.
With the expansion of new production capacity of lithium battery materials and the intensive release of production capacity, the "grey rhinoceros" of overcapacity of lithium battery materials is also accelerating and approaching. In addition, more and more companies are entering the lithium battery market, the track is becoming more crowded, and competition is becoming increasingly fierce.
Industry insiders analyzed that the current market size of my country's lithium batteries is far from being able to support such a high valuation level. Many projects may have overdrawn their valuations for the next 10 years. Although there are a large number of new energy power battery companies in my country, in fact, those that can develop healthily are relatively limited. If the situation of structural overcapacity cannot be improved, the lithium battery industry will one day collapse.
For ceramic enterprises, switching to lithium battery production is certainly a good choice, but they must consider based on actual conditions, which track is suitable for them, and do not rashly switch production because of temporary enthusiasm or following the trend. If you are just chasing the trend to make quick money, you will only end up repeating the same mistakes and disappearing in the iterative upgrade of the market.
