Sentiment was buoyed among most market participants at the annual Nickel & Cobalt conference held by Chinese information provider Antaike on November 1-3 in Ningbo, China, but the strong resurgence of lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries has created uncertainty about consumption of the two metals.
Fastmarkets summarizes below four key takeaways from the sidelines of the conference.
LFP outperforms NCM batteries in China; nickel-rich NCM batteries remain main battery tech in Europe
LFP batteries now account for around 60% of the Chinese market while nickel-cobalt-manganese (NCM) batteries account for 40%, following the strong resurgence of favor of the former among original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in China since late last year, according to conference participants.
Most market participants also believe the momentum of LFP batteries is likely to remain intact for a few years, especially after electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing giant Tesla announced last month it will use this type of battery technology across its standard-range models globally.
Stakeholders along the NCM battery materials supply chain, including precursor and cathode material producers as well as upstream cobalt or nickel salts producers, have expressed concern about the rate of NCM battery production growth in the coming year.