Benefiting from the growth in new energy vehicle production and sales, the nickel sulfate industry has good development prospects

Nickel sulfate is an intermediate product in the nickel ore industry chain. It is an inorganic substance that is mainly used in the electroplating industry. It is the main nickel salt for electroplating nickel and chemical nickel. In recent years, due to the rapid development of the new energy automobile industry, the application demand for nickel sulfate, as an important production raw material for power batteries, continues to rise, and the industry has developed rapidly.

The traditional production process of nickel sulfate relies on the pyrotechnics of nickel sulfide ore to smelt high matte nickel, and then uses a wet process to produce the product. In recent years, due to over-exploitation and reduction of resource reserves, the output of nickel sulfide ore has shown a downward trend, reaching 430,000 tons in 2019. With the decrease in nickel sulfide ore production, laterite nickel ore is gradually used as raw material to replace nickel sulfide ore to produce nickel sulfate.

Nickel ore can be mainly divided into laterite nickel ore and nickel sulfide ore. Among them, laterite nickel ore resources are more abundant, accounting for about 62% of global nickel ore reserves. In 2020, global nickel ore reserves reached 94.2 million tons, of which Indonesia is the country with the richest nickel ore resources, with approximately 21.1 million tons of nickel ore reserves.

In terms of demand, nickel sulfate is mainly used in nickel-metal hydride batteries, ternary material precursors and electroplating fields. Among them, the demand for ternary material precursors in lithium batteries accounts for up to 56%, followed by the electroplating field, accounting for about 20%. %, and the demand for nickel-metal hydride batteries accounts for 10%. Ternary precursors are mainly used in new energy vehicle power batteries. In 2020, global electric vehicle sales were approximately 3.25 million units, and my country’s new energy vehicle production in 2020 was approximately 1.366 million units. Due to their high energy density and long-distance endurance, ternary lithium batteries have high application demand in new energy vehicles. Among the newly installed capacity in 2020, ternary battery installations accounted for 65%.

According to the “China Nickel Sulfate Industry Comprehensive Market Research and Investment Analysis Report 2021-2025” released by the Industrial Research Center, three From the perspective of the development of the lithium battery industry, high nickelization will become a future development trend due to its lower unit cost of electricity, and will also increase the market demand for nickel sulfate. As subsidies for new energy vehicles gradually decline, cost has become an important issue. In order to improve quality and reduce costs, ternary lithium batteries will gradually develop in the direction of high nickel and low cobalt in the future, which is more conducive to the development of the nickel sulfate industry. Globally, nickel sulfate consumption in 2020 is about 650,000 tons, and global nickel sulfate production is about 820,000 tons. The production is mainly concentrated in China, Japan, South Korea and other countries. Among them, China’s nickel sulfate production is higher, in 2020 The output reached 650,000 tons.

Industrial analysts people said that nickel sulfate is mainly used in the production of ternary lithium batteries. In recent years, it has been affected by the development of the downstream new energy automobile industry. Driven by this, the market demand for nickel sulfate continues to rise. In the future, under the influence of policies, the production and sales of new energy vehicles will continue to rise, and there is a high demand for cost reduction and quality improvement of power batteries, which is conducive to the development of the nickel sulfate industry. In terms of production, my country is the world’s major nickel sulfate producer. However, limited by raw materials, domestic nickel sulfate production is growing slowly. In the future, Indonesia will become the main market for nickel sulfate in the world, and my country’s market will be threatened.