Battery Electrolyte Market Remains Sluggish in China

30th June 2022, Singapore: As the market activities rebound in China, several commodities gained value with improved demand and the rising value of the upstream energy commodities. The Chinese authorities decided to remove COVID restrictions to promote the public and market movement in the domestic market, proportionally improving the value chain. However, the market dynamics for essential key electrolytes remain sluggish-to-stagger within a rangebound despite the improvement in demand.

According to our pricing intelligence, the offered quotations from producers for Ethylene Carbonate, Di-Methyl Carbonate, and Propylene Carbonate witnessed a growth of -30%, +1.96%, and +11.01%, respectively. The rising consumption of Lithium-Iron-Phosphate (LFP) batteries is driving the market growth for Propylene Carbonate across the Chinese domestic market, followed by the rebounding demand from the end-use industries.

Our correspondent in China stated that the key domestic players in the EV automobile industry resumed production post-COVID shutdown. Although several manufacturers in Shanghai and near northeast China decided to keep the assembly line close, they chose to modify the facilities to optimize the production capacity. The critical raw battery material producers mainly focused on releasing the current inventories to start the new cycle batch production, significantly impacting the key battery electrolyte markets.

As per ChemAnalyst, these developments will impact, for a short-term period, although Volkswagen, a major automobile manufacturer in Europe, has decided to source essential raw materials from a China-based LEAD to support the production of its 20 GWh facilities to manufacture EV batteries with an investment of EUR 20 Billion. Therefore, it's been estimated to have a long-term impact on the Chinese battery electrolyte market in the upcoming period.