★ New energy power vehicle market develops further now and rumors claim that the subsidy on new energy vehicles will be cut in 2018, which will bring a lot of influences on battery producers.
It's said that the subsidy on new energy will be cut in 2018; meanwhile, battery prices will go down further, stimulating raw material prices to decline. Will the new energy vehicle market in 2018 develop as rapid as expected?

★ With the imports of spodumene increasing, market participants turn their attention from the supply of raw materials to the releasing of lithium salts capacities.
China will import more Australian-origin ores in 2018 and Mineral Resources, Pilbara and Galaxy will start to export spodumene in bulk. Lithium salts producers used to be influenced by the tight supply of raw materials in releasing capacities, but now market participants pay more attention to whether lithium salts producers can release their capacities in 2018.

★Congo restricts the export of cobalt concentrate now and the Presidential Campaign will be held there in 2018, which will result in the tight supply of cobalt raw materials.
Affected by the export restriction policy on cobalt concentrate in Congo, Chinese downstream customers prefer to purchase cobalt hydrometallurgy intermediates. With cobalt prices up continuously in the international market, Chinese producers will suffer from high production costs and how will they face this challenge?

★Suppliers of nickel hydrometallurgy intermediates cooperate with downstream producers, leading to tight supply of upstream raw materials
Nickel content in ternary materials is increasing now, leading to increased demand for nickel. Large suppliers of nickel hydrometallurgy intermediates and famous downstream consumers cooperate with each other to built new production lines of nickel sulfate, resulting in tight supply of raw materials of nickel sulfate and probably further increased prices of nickel sulfate.