2018 Environmental Protection Re-Upgrade

SMM8, 9th: At the beginning of the year, the comprehensive control of air pollution in North China, the rectification of Anhui Industrial Park, and the central environmental protection inspection team's "look back" work on various provinces, the continuous strengthening of environmental protection efforts is undoubtedly a key factor for the secondary lead industry. It has a great impact, especially for the "three no" smelters of secondary lead, which have many restrictions on production. In recent months, many provinces have begun to conduct environmental self-inspection. In early July, due to environmental self-inspection in Jiangxi Province, some secondary lead smelters once again entered the stage of production reduction and shutdown.

However, according to the SMM survey, the environmental protection policy in the first half of the year was most affected by the non-licensed enterprises of recycled lead. Due to environmental inspections, many small factories in Henan, Hebei, Shandong, Anhui, Jiangxi and Guangdong have been shut down.

The details of each month are listed below:

In January, in the market research, it was found that in January, except for some enterprises whose production volume increased due to sufficient supply of raw materials, the output of most of the large-scale refineries of recycled lead decreased, which was not greatly affected by environmental protection policies.

In February, in order to fight the final battle of the comprehensive control of air pollution in the autumn and winter of 2017-2018, the provincial environmental protection department unified the organization of law enforcement forces at all levels in the province on February 25, and continued to carry out the fifth round of special action on atmospheric environment law enforcement. . In terms of secondary lead, many small-scale secondary lead refineries have stopped production ahead of schedule, resulting in lower overall output.

In March, although most of the large refineries resumed production after the holiday, small refineries were less motivated to resume work due to meager profits and concerns about future consumption. In addition, environmental protection in Hebei, Anhui and other places increased again, and heavy smog in the northern region was restricted. Non-stop production has occurred, affecting the normal production of most enterprises in these areas.

In April, the Jiangsu provincial government convened the fourth plenary meeting of the provincial environmental protection supervision work leading group to study and deploy the third batch of provincial environmental protection supervision work. As of April 24, the three provincial environmental protection supervision groups have all completed Supervised and stationed in Changzhou, Huaian and Zhenjiang. Anhui Taihe Industrial Park launched a one-year secondary lead rectification project. In April, the lead-related refinery was completely shut down, affecting the production of secondary lead of about 1,000 tons per day. Environmental protection in Henan, Jiangxi, and other places continues, and there is no sign of relaxation.

In May, the environmental protection of recycled lead intensified. The Ministry of Ecology and Environment launched the “Waste Removal Action 2018” to conduct a comprehensive survey and verification of the dumping of solid waste in the Yangtze River Economic Belt. Production restrictions in secondary lead refineries were common, resulting in a continuous decline in social inventory, which affected the production of secondary lead. About 3000 tons/day.

Due to the severe environmental protection situation in the secondary lead market, for example, in the affected Jiangxi region, the resumption of work of secondary lead refineries has been delayed due to the "look back" by the central environmental protection inspector, and the downstream procurement demand continues to flow to primary lead. Overall, secondary lead production dropped significantly in May.

The Henan Provincial Department of Environmental Protection issued an urgent notice to strengthen the environmental supervision of solid waste and hazardous waste, requiring further efforts to investigate and rectify hazardous waste-related units and daily environmental supervision, and strengthen the crackdown on illegal disposal and other illegal activities. According to SMM research, the production of local secondary lead refineries is generally limited, especially the non-licensed small refineries are almost all shut down, resulting in a reduction of local secondary lead supply by about 1,000 tons per day.

In June, the central environmental protection inspection team launched a special campaign of "Looking Back" across the country. The environmental protection inspection team was stationed in Henan, Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Heilongjiang, Jiangsu, Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan and other places. The environmental impact of the recycled lead market was stronger than that in May. Recycling lead refineries in Jiangxi, Henan, Hebei and other places are generally restricted. Although some refineries in Anhui, Guizhou and other places resume production after inspections, but because the contribution is not enough to offset the reduction, the amount of recycled lead is reduced. about 10,000 tons.

Since July, with the easing of the central environmental protection situation, secondary lead refineries in various places have resumed production one after another, and the supply of secondary lead has rebounded.

Under the heavy pressure of environmental protection, the impact on large enterprises is not very large, but for those small enterprises, it is undoubtedly a "disaster", production reduction and production suspension have become the norm, especially since the beginning of May this year, due to the central environmental protection supervision The inspection situation is severe, and the operation of secondary lead refineries in many places is limited, and there is a regional shortage of secondary lead during this period. At the same time, the lead price continued to strengthen due to the tight supply, and the price of secondary lead followed the lead price increase due to the tight supply.

It is understood that more than 90% of lead in the United States comes from recycling production, more than 60% in Europe, and about 40% in China. China's lead consumption has grown steadily since 2012, but mine lead production has shown a downward trend, which proves that the current gradual increase in my country's lead consumption is mainly supplemented by recycling waste lead-acid batteries.

In 2017, 88 large-scale recycled lead enterprises have a production capacity of more than 10 million tons/year of waste lead-acid batteries. The production capacity of the recycled lead industry has grown rapidly and has become an important part of my country's lead industry. However, in 2018, under the heavy pressure of environmental protection, how can secondary lead enterprises realize their own economic benefits under the permission of policies?

The upgrading of environmental protection has led to corresponding changes in the industry structure. Three small enterprises continue to shrink, and production capacity is concentrated in large enterprises. Following the acquisition of 49% of Huabo Technology by Narada last year to hold 100% of its shares, in June, Camel also stated that it would invest 1.5 billion yuan to increase the secondary lead business. According to the announcement of Camel on the evening of June 8, in the next three years, the company plans to invest 1.5 billion yuan in the secondary lead sector, add three new production bases, and at the same time carry out technological upgrading and transformation of the original production bases to form no less than 1 million tons annual processing capacity of waste lead-acid batteries.

For the secondary lead industry, many listed companies expressed their continued optimism. According to the analysis of Yuguang Gold and Lead's 2017 annual report, although my country's production of secondary lead has grown rapidly in recent years and the proportion of secondary lead has continued to increase, compared with developed countries in the world, there is still a Large gap, my country's recycled lead industry has huge development potential in the future.

Recycled lead companies continue to grow and develop. With the trend of increasing recycled lead business from many companies, how much new production capacity will be put into operation in 2018, whether the problem of excess smelting capacity has subsided under the pressure of environmental protection, and what opportunities will the industry face in the future? with challenges? Please pay attention to the "8th Regenerated Lead Battery Industry Summit" hosted by Shanghai Nonferrous Metals Network on September 13-14, 2018, and there will be industry experts on the spot for you to analyze in detail.