Recently, the price of metal indium has risen sharply. According to industry insiders, the increase in the price of metal indium this time is mainly due to the explosive growth of photovoltaic heterojunction cells. Indium is a rare metal. As long as the production capacity can keep up, there is huge room for price increases in the future.
China has abundant indium resources, with 70% of the global indium reserves, making it the country with the most abundant indium resources in the world. Among them, YNXY Indium Tin Material Technology Corporation has 5897 tons of indium reserves, accounting for 40% of the world, and an annual output of 90 tons, accounting for about 12% of global supply.
Photovoltaic heterojunction cell technology breakthrough drives indium demand to increase
Metal indium is mainly used as raw materials for manufacturing low-melting alloys, bearing alloys, semiconductors, and electric light sources. The distribution of indium in the earth's crust is relatively small and very scattered. Indium-rich ore has not been discovered, but exists as an impurity in zinc and other metal ores, so it is listed as a rare metal.
The world's estimated indium reserves are only 50,000 tons, of which 50% can be exploited. Since no independent indium ore has been found, the industry produces metallic indium by purifying waste zinc and tin, with a recovery rate of about 50%-60%. 90% of the world's indium production comes from the by-products of lead-zinc smelters. The method of smelting and recovery of indium is mainly to recover from the smelting scum, slag and anode mud of copper, lead and zinc through enrichment.
According to relevant industry statistics, the demand for indium has not changed much in recent years, basically maintaining at around 1700 tons. In 2017-2020, the demand for indium is 1682 tons, 1704 tons, 1701 tons, and 1700 tons, respectively.
But this balance of demand was broken this year. Due to breakthroughs in photovoltaic heterojunction cell technology, the demand for metallic indium has increased significantly. According to statistics, by 2022, the installed capacity of heterojunction batteries is conservative at 20GW, while the 1GW heterojunction target requires 3.17 tons of indium, and it is expected to require more than 60 tons by 2022; the installed capacity of heterojunction batteries is expected to be 200GW by 2025. The new demand for indium is at least 600 tons; in 2035, the demand for heterojunction installed capacity is expected to be above 2000GW, coupled with the growth of demand in other fields, corresponding to the new demand for indium from 7000 to 8000 tons per year, bringing the entire industry to the expectation of price spikes.
YNXY is a world-renowned tin production and processing base. It is the longest and most complete enterprise in the world tin production chain. It ranks first in the world tin industry and has a long history. It has a history of more than 120 years since its establishment. It is the birthplace of China's tin industry, the "leader" of China's tin industry, and the leading enterprise in China's tin industry. It has strong international competitiveness.
As of December 31, 2020, the company has 5,877 tons of indium resources. The company will produce 72.5 tons and 34.88 tons of indium ingots in 2020 and the first half of 2021, respectively.
Global indium demand is in a stage of sustained and steady growth
The strong indium price this round is mainly related to HJT batteries. Industry insiders pointed out that HJT is the only direction for photovoltaic cell upgrades in the next five years. From the perspective of commercial mass production, HJT can achieve the highest commercially available cell efficiency. Heterojunction (HIT) is a special PN junction formed by amorphous silicon and crystalline silicon materials. It is a kind of N-type battery by depositing an amorphous silicon film on crystalline silicon. It was first successfully developed by Sanyo Corporation of Japan in 1990. Because HIT has been registered as a trademark by Sanyo, it is also called HJT, HDT or SHJ.
It is understood that among the main application markets of indium, the largest downstream application market is ITO targets, which account for 70% of the demand; followed by electronic semiconductors, solder and alloys, which account for 12% and 11% of the demand respectively; The next step is the research field, with demand accounting for 7%. my country is the world's largest producer of consumer electronics, and the global flat panel display production capacity is shifting to the domestic market. Therefore, the domestic market's demand for indium is rising rapidly.
Analysts said that under the condition of export quotas and rapid growth in domestic market demand, China's indium export volume has gradually decreased, and it is no longer a major indium exporter. Coupled with the demand in emerging fields, the future development prospects of the indium demand market are good. In 2021, global indium demand is expected to be approximately 1,750 tons, of which LCD/OLED demand growth rate is 9%, an annual increase of 20 tons; second-generation semiconductors and 400G data communication (indium phosphide) annual new demand is about 10 tons, the growth is relatively Stablize.