Recently, an epic nickel short-squeezing battle has pushed the price of nickel futures to a record high, which in turn has sparked concerns in the new energy vehicle market.

　　With the continuous decline of subsidies and rising raw material prices, more than a dozen car companies have raised product prices since the beginning of this year.

　　Now that the price of nickel is skyrocketing, what impact will it have on new energy car companies?

　　Why is nickel "crazy"?

　　On March 7, the London Metal Exchange (LME) nickel price fluctuated dramatically. It soared by more than 90% during the session, reaching as high as $55,000/ton, and closed down to $50,300/ton, an increase of 73.93%.

　　On March 8, Lun nickel continued to go crazy, and the increase even reached 110%, setting a historically high price of US$101,365/ton, with a cumulative increase of more than 230% in two days.

　　Domestically, affected by Lun Nickel, the Shanghai Nickel 2204 contract traded at a daily limit of 12% on the 7th and a daily limit of 15% in the night trading; continued to seal the daily limit on the 8th and closed at 228,810 yuan/ton; on the 9th, the daily limit was closed again, and the latest quotation was 2,677,000,000 yuan. /Ton.

　　Two weeks ago, the price of Lun nickel was 25,000 yuan / ton, and now it has soared five times, which has completely separated from supply and demand.

　　To borrow the words of Cai Jianyong, chairman of Ningbo Liqin, this is actually a well-planned hunt by overseas capital for China's nickel industry.

　　The hunted party is the Fortune 500 company Tsingshan Holding Group, the world's largest producer of stainless steel and primary nickel.

　　Inventory in the nickel market has been in a state of continuous accumulation until now, with supply exceeding demand. But I didn't expect the sudden outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war, which set off a surge in commodity prices.

　　Russia is the world's third largest nickel producer. In 2021, Russia's nickel production will account for 6% of the global primary nickel (including primary nickel and secondary nickel) production, and 22% of the global primary nickel production capacity. The continued escalation of sanctions against Russia by the United States and Europe has raised market concerns about Russian nickel exports.

　　This panic caused nickel prices to rise, so the bulls took advantage of the trend to squeeze positions, which further pushed up nickel prices. The reason for the short position is that the products of Tsingshan Group that meet the LME delivery requirements are only high nickel matte produced in Russia.

　　As Russian Nickel was kicked out of the London Metal Exchange, Tsingshan Group's products could not be used as delivery targets. If the delivery cannot be completed on time, Tsingshan Group may lose up to US$12 billion once it is forced to liquidate.

　　Fortunately, at 16:00 on March 8, Beijing time, the LME announced that it would suspend all forms of nickel contract trading and postpone the delivery of all spot nickel contracts originally scheduled for delivery on March 9. The exchange is not expected to resume before March 11. Trading in nickel futures has given Tsingshan a respite.

　　The latest news shows that Tsingshan Group will replace the domestic metal nickel plate with its high matte nickel plate, and has allocated sufficient spot for delivery through various channels.

　　Behind this squeeze, the real purpose of the other party is actually the nickel mine that Tsingshan Group put into production in Indonesia. The high nickel matte plant is expected to reach an annual production capacity of 100,000 tons in 2022.

　　Indonesia is the country with the largest nickel reserves in the world, and it has long been a battleground for global mining giants. At present, the local nickel industry presents a situation where Indonesian local enterprises, Western mining enterprises and Chinese-funded enterprises are divided into three parts.

　　Will it affect the domestic auto market?

　　Nickel plays an important role in the global transition to clean energy. Like lithium and cobalt, it is an important raw material for power batteries and is mainly used in ternary material batteries.

　　Since 2021, the trend of high-nickelization of power batteries has become more and more clear, and the penetration rate of NCM811 and NCA-type high-nickel ternary has reached about 40%.

　　According to statistics from the World Bureau of Metal Statistics, the global nickel market will have an oversupply of 84,000 tons in 2020, and a shortage of 144,300 tons in 2021. Last year, my country imported 43.529 million tons and 262,000 tons of nickel ore and electrolytic nickel respectively, up 11.4% and 100% year-on-year respectively.

　　Obviously, the rapid development of new energy vehicles has driven the rising demand for nickel.

　　Yang Yanxia, ​​director of the Marketing Department of Huayou Cobalt New Materials Industry Group, pointed out that the proportion of nickel in the field of lithium batteries has been increasing, from about 3.5% in 2015 to about 16.1% in 2021, and is expected to reach 21.5% in 2022. about.

　　Huayou Cobalt is one of the partners of Tsingshan Group. Tsingshan Group announced last year that it will provide 60,000 tons of nickel matte to the former from October 2021. In this short-squeeze event, several companies that have a cooperative relationship with Tsingshan Group were also hit, and Huayou Cobalt has fallen by the limit for two consecutive trading days.

　　Many people worry that the surge in nickel prices will affect the domestic auto market.

　　Tianfeng Securities estimates that when the nickel price is US$50,000/ton, the cost of a Model 3 (76.8 kWh) will increase by 10,500 yuan, Xiaopeng P7 (80.87 kWh) will increase by 11,000 yuan, and Weilai EC6 will increase by 11,000 yuan. (70 kWh) will rise by 9,500 yuan.

　　But in fact, the nickel market has always been oversupplied. Essence Securities pointed out that Tsingshan Group has more than 12 million tons of nickel metal reserves in Indonesia, while China's annual demand for nickel metal is only about 1 million tons. Moreover, the surge in nickel prices is not sustainable, it is only a short-term behavior.

　　Huayou Cobalt said that the rise and fall of nickel prices is related to the demand for downstream applications. In terms of short-term business behavior, the rise in nickel prices is good for companies engaged in the development of nickel resources. But in the long run, high nickel prices will affect the demand of downstream customers, which is not conducive to the popularization and promotion of the new energy industry.

　　Keliyuan said that the recent rapid rise in nickel prices has little impact on the company. On the one hand, the company will lock in the periodic procurement costs through hedging of bulk commodity raw materials. On the other hand, the company's nickel products and downstream customers' pricing model is dynamically adjusted with the fluctuation of raw material prices. Production costs are less affected.

　　An insider of a power battery company told Fenghuang.com that the rise in nickel prices does not put too much pressure on the power battery company, because the company's cost strategy is to "follow up", and the precondition for the price increase of battery cells in the contract is It is linked to the prices of various metals on the LME.

　　Does that mean that the cost pressure brought about by soaring nickel prices will eventually fall on car companies?

　　Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the China Passenger Transport Association, believes that the impact of the sharp rise in nickel prices on the downstream is not very serious. He said that the recent surge in nickel prices is of a hype nature, and prices will fall back in the short term. Because countries such as Indonesia are major exporters of nickel, the impact of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine is limited. However, he also mentioned that although sales will not be affected, car companies do have to bear some pressure on battery costs.

　　The sources of nickel ore are two kinds of nickel sulfide ore and laterite nickel ore. Due to different associated minerals, laterite-type nickel ore and sulfide-type nickel ore have different downstream smelting links, forming different production chains. Among them, the supply and demand path of new nickel is: laterite/nickel sulfide ore→nickel sulfate→battery.

　　Bai Yiyang, manager of the research department of China Merchants Bank International Securities Co., Ltd., told Fenghuang.com that the current price surge is the futures of nickel beans and nickel plates, and the spot conduction with battery-grade nickel sulfate needs to be observed for a while. The influence of nickel. He believes that this surge will quickly return to rationality and will not have much impact on the new energy vehicle industry.

　　Zhang Xiang, an automotive analyst and a researcher at the Automotive Industry Innovation Research Center of North China University of Technology, said: "Nickel mainly involves ternary lithium batteries. Since last year, the installed capacity of ternary lithium batteries has been less than that of lithium iron phosphate, such as Tesla Shanghai. The super factory has switched to lithium iron phosphate. Therefore, even if the price increase of nickel has a certain impact on new energy vehicles, car companies will not continue to increase prices.”

　　The rising importance of commodities

　　Although the nickel futures price surge this time is somewhat accidental, data shows that domestic nickel prices have risen by 50.95% since 2022. After lithium and cobalt, nickel has become another invisible battlefield behind the electrification transformation of the automotive market.

　　Going further, the basic raw materials of commodities, including nickel, are enough to affect the future development trend of new energy vehicles. The outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict further highlights this phenomenon.

　　It is understood that the main automotive raw materials from Russia and Ukraine include palladium for gasoline vehicles, nickel for NCM batteries, aluminum for lightweight components, and neon and other noble gases for semiconductors.

　　According to data, up to 70% of the world's production of neon required for automotive chip production comes from Ukraine. For palladium used in sensors, memory and other products, 26% of the world's palladium comes from Russia.

　　In fact, commodities are the cornerstone of the global economy and the raw materials for millions of products around the world. Without commodities, many products would face no raw material supply.

　　Russia is the largest supplier of commodities, including oil, natural gas, coal, chemicals, non-ferrous metals, wheat, and more. With the continuous escalation of US and European sanctions, the prices of crude oil, natural gas, aluminum and other commodities have experienced a short-term supply shortage shock surge. For example, the price of crude oil futures once exceeded 120 US dollars.

　　Previously, the epidemic affected the production capacity and supply chain of global commodities, and then the escalation of the situation in Russia and Ukraine caused concerns about supply disruptions. Just like the dominoes that were pushed, it completely triggered global commodity inflation and industrial chain crisis concerns.

　　The surge in nickel prices this time has led to a collective short-term rise in the prices of metals such as aluminum, lead, and zinc. After the London Metal Exchange announced the suspension of nickel trading, LME aluminum, LME lead, LME zinc, and LME tin plummeted.

　　UBS pointed out that the situation in Ukraine has limited impact on the revenue of auto companies, but supply chain disruptions and rising raw material prices have created greater uncertainty. The impact could be more widespread against the backdrop of chip shortages and rising commodity prices.

　　Just a few days ago, the National Development and Reform Commission specifically emphasized that it is necessary to pay close attention to the supply and demand and price trends of key commodity markets, and will resolutely crack down on malicious speculation by capital. This also shows that the country hopes to start from the fundamentals to ensure that the profits of auto companies will not fluctuate greatly, so that the promotion of new energy vehicle consumption can be promoted steadily.

　　Write at the end:

　　Wang Chuanfu once said that a battery that is really used on a large scale must not use rare metals, and it must not be stuck in the neck from oil to cobalt or nickel. For China, which lacks cobalt and nickel, the future must be dominated by lithium iron phosphate batteries.

　　In the short term, the surge in nickel prices is caused by the combination of factors such as the uncertainty of the situation in Russia and Ukraine, low inventory, cost support, and transaction squeeze. However, in the medium and long term, the upward trend of nickel prices is sustainable. Therefore, how to get rid of the dependence on rare metals is probably a topic that major car companies must study for a long time in the future.