Jiangsu Baichuan High-tech New Materials announced that the '2GWh lithium-ion battery and battery pack project' has entered mass production. Prior to the disclosure of this information, the market had already reacted, and Jiangsu Baichuan High-tech New Materials had the highest net daily purchase amount in the stocks listed on the daily Dragon and Tiger List. According to the company's annual report, the utilization rate of the company's existing lithium-ion battery production lines was not good last year, and lithium battery prices have remained under pressure recently.
Due to weak market conditions for its main chemical products, Jiangsu Baichuan High-tech New Materials (002455.SZ) suffered its first loss in over ten years since listing last year. In response to market changes, the company is pushing for transformation to the new materials and new energy fields, and has made progress. The company announced tonight that the "annual production of 2 GWh lithium-ion battery and battery pack project" has entered the mass production stage.
It is worth noting that the secondary market had already reacted before the disclosure of this information. Jiangsu Baichuan High-tech New Materials is the listed company with the largest net purchase amount on today's Dragon and Tiger List, reaching 125 million yuan. The share price of Jiangsu Baichuan High-tech New Materials once hit the daily limit and closed up 7.90% at the end of the day.
It is reported that the "annual production of 2 GWh lithium-ion battery and battery pack project" of Jiangsu Baichuan High-tech New Materials is implemented by its subsidiary, Jiangsu Haiji New Energy Stock Co., Ltd. According to the company's announcement released in November 2021, the total investment of this project is 474 million yuan (including the bottom-up working capital of 112 million yuan), and the funds come from Haiji New Energy's self-raised funds. At that time, the project was planned to be completed in 10 months, but it has been delayed.
In fact, another project that Jiangsu Baichuan High-tech New Materials is placing high hopes on, the annual output of 30,000 tons of anode material (80,000 tons of graphite) with total investment of 1.42 billion yuan, is also experiencing delays. According to the company's announcement at the end of April this year, affected by multiple factors, the overall progress of the project is not as expected. The original plan was to achieve the predetermined usable date in April 2024, but after the delay, it was postponed to April 2025.
According to the announcement released by Jiangsu Baichuan High-tech New Materials today, the "annual production of 2 GWh lithium-ion battery and battery pack project" has completed equipment upgrades and debugging and produced qualified products. The production line can be compatible with the production of large specifications such as 280Ah and 314Ah battery cells. The current production capacity is ramping up and has entered the mass production stage.
Jiangsu Baichuan High-tech New Materials believes that the above projects conform to the company's development strategy plan, expand the company's production scale, upgrade and optimize the company's products, continuously meet market demand, and help the company form a scale advantage, enrich product types, and improve the company's risk resistance and core competitiveness. It is expected to have a positive impact on the company's future development.
According to the 2023 annual report of Jiangsu Baichuan High-tech New Materials, the company already has a production capacity of 4 GWh of lithium iron phosphate batteries, and the capacity utilization rate was 71.11% at the end of 2023. In addition, the company's new energy products (including lithium batteries, energy storage modules, and energy storage systems, etc.) produced a volume of 1.12 GWh and sales volume of 0.83 GWh last year. The product price was affected by market conditions and showed a gradual decline.
According to related announcement information, Jiangsu Baichuan High-tech New Materials had this 4 GWh production capacity at the beginning of 2023. Therefore, from the overall perspective of last year, the production capacity utilization rate of the company's lithium battery production line was at a low level and may even be lower than 30%, according to preliminary estimates by reporters from Cailian Press.
In terms of market conditions, due to factors such as the release of a large amount of new production capacity in the industry and a significant increase in supply, the price of lithium-ion batteries has still been under pressure recently. The latest data from Shanghai Ganglian E-commerce Holdings shows that the spot average price of battery-grade lithium carbonate is 98,500 yuan/ton.