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Chem/Huayou Cobalt deal reshapes cathode landscape for electric vehicle batteries","lg-chem-huayou-cobalt-deal-reshapes-cathode-landscape-for-electric-vehicle-batteries","article/lg-chem-huayou-cobalt-deal-reshapes-cathode-landscape-for-electric-vehicle-batteries",{"_uid":557,"date":558,"tags":559,"editor":560,"content":570,"excerpt":671,"featured":50,"reporter":672,"_editable":676,"component":677,"seo_title":553,"categories":678,"visibility":692,"author_company":49,"featured_image":693,"seo_description":671,"author_full_name":49,"author_job_title":49,"formattedDate":698,"formattedArticleDate":699},"38dbaf9b-3cb8-44ab-8c90-dd9cca90ac93","2018-06-15 00:00",[],[561],{"slug":562,"name":563,"content":564},"matthew-bird","Matthew Bird",{"job_title":565,"image":566,"bio":568,"linkedin":569},"Senior Editor - Supply Chains & Data Visualisation",{"filename":567},"https://a.storyblok.com/f/287943243085208/512x512/14738033ec/matthew-bird.jpeg","Matthew writes, edits and produces content for Benchmark Intelligence and Benchmark Source across the whole mine to grid supply chain. He also acts as a liaison to the press. He has a PhD in electrochemistry from the University of Nottingham.","https://www.linkedin.com/in/birdmatthew/",{"type":571,"content":572},"doc",[573,581,587,592,597,606,611,619,624,627,632,637,646,651,656,661,666],{"type":574,"attrs":575,"content":577},"heading",{"level":576,"textAlign":49},3,[578],{"text":579,"type":580},"Over $440 million will be invested in two joint ventures, sending shockwaves across the industry","text",{"type":582,"attrs":583,"content":584},"paragraph",{"textAlign":49},[585],{"text":586,"type":580},"Korean battery major LG Chem and China’s Huayou Cobalt have announced a huge deal to launch two plants that will have a significant bearing on the lithium ion battery industry’s cathode direction.",{"type":582,"attrs":588,"content":589},{"textAlign":49},[590],{"text":591,"type":580},"The partnership will see a 40,000 tpa lithium ion battery precursor plant and a 40,000 tpa cathode plant being constructed within China over the next 18 months. Both are being installed with a capacity expansion to 100,000 tpa each in mind. It is the world’s most significant deal between a raw material miner and a lithium ion battery manufacturer to date. It is also a major move by a battery manufacturer to control such a large cathode manufacturing capacity, confirming fears that present cathode producers are not — or cannot — expand quickly enough.",{"type":582,"attrs":593,"content":594},{"textAlign":49},[595],{"text":596,"type":580},"The total investment is in excess of $440m and lays out the formation of two separate joint-venture companies: Huajin New Energy Material (Quzhou) Co.,Ltd and Leyou New Energy Material (Wuxi) Co,Ltd. For the purpose of the JV Huayou incorporated a new subsidiary Huayou New Energy Technology Co. Ltd. which deals with LG Chem directly. Huajin is majority owned by Huayou (51%, remainder LG Chem) and will have the capacity to initially produce 40,000tpa of lithium ion battery precursor. Leyou is majority owned by LG Chem (51%, remainder Huayou) and will have an equal capacity to produce 40,000tpa of lithium ion battery cathode.",{"type":582,"attrs":598,"content":599},{"textAlign":49},[600,602,604],{"text":601,"type":580},"The announcement states that the plants will be largely equipped to produce both nickel cobalt manganese (NCM) and nickel cobalt aluminium (NCA) technologies. A decision on the direction or the final NCM to NCA split is yet to be made, but LG Chem is a major producer of NCM batteries for electric vehicles. To put the size of the deal into perspective, ",{"text":603,"type":580},"Benchmark Mineral Intelligence",{"text":605,"type":580}," estimates that in 2017 Umicore was the world’s largest cathode maker producing 24,000 tonnes of material.",{"type":582,"attrs":607,"content":608},{"textAlign":49},[609],{"text":610,"type":580},"The JV arrangement enables the two companies to control the entire value chain from raw material production, owned by Huayou in the DRC, through to finished cells with LG Chem battery operations located in South Korea, China, Poland and the US. LG Chem is a major producer of batteries for General Motors’ / Chevrolet’s Bolt and Volt EVs through the lithium ion battery plant in Holland, Michigan which has a 3GWh capacity and will be expanding to double this number over the next 2 years.",{"type":582,"attrs":612,"content":613},{"textAlign":49},[614,616,617],{"text":615,"type":580},"The plant is also one of 30 lithium ion battery megafactories that ",{"text":603,"type":580},{"text":618,"type":580}," is tracking. The cobalt deal confirms that downstream companies such as LG Chem are increasingly concerned with securing a reliable source of raw materials, and in order to meet their expected future demand they are prepared to invest and become vertically integrated in the value chain. With such significant expansions needed throughout the supply chain in order to meet forecasted demand of lithium ion battery raw materials, question marks have hovered over how the industry will fund the capacity expansions.",{"type":582,"attrs":620,"content":621},{"textAlign":49},[622],{"text":623,"type":580},"This JV structure outlined above is just one of a number of ways the industry is tackling the issue, with shared risk among the two parties and an agreement to provide each other with “competitive pricing” for processed products.",{"type":582,"attrs":625,"content":626},{"textAlign":49},[],{"type":574,"attrs":628,"content":629},{"level":576,"textAlign":49},[630],{"text":631,"type":580},"Clean cobalt",{"type":582,"attrs":633,"content":634},{"textAlign":49},[635],{"text":636,"type":580},"The deal also enables LG Chem to ensure that their cobalt sourcing is free of the human rights issue associated with some DRC cobalt. Huayou are recognised within the supply chain as one of the companies that has done considerable work on improving their sustainable sourcing efforts from within the DRC. Last month a program involving Huayou was announced which is designed to enable consumers to track legal artisanal material. The ‘Better Cobalt’ project will track the material produced from 5 artisanal mines in the Katanga region of the DRC who produce to OECD standards.",{"type":582,"attrs":638,"content":639},{"textAlign":49},[640,642,644],{"text":641,"type":580},"The project is being coordinated by the Better Sourcing Program but involves a number of companies in the supply chain. Only Huayou has yet been named as one of the partners. The project is significant as it is one of the first major steps taken to evolve the DRC artisanal supply chain to a reliable, legal source of material — and may help to reduce some of the stranglehold that industrial miners in the country have on supplying the EV industry. ",{"text":643,"type":580},"Benchmark",{"text":645,"type":580}," estimates that 9,000 tonnes of artisanal material will be produced in the DRC this year of which only a small portion is illegally produced.",{"type":574,"attrs":647,"content":648},{"level":576,"textAlign":49},[649],{"text":650,"type":580},"Shock to the system",{"type":582,"attrs":652,"content":653},{"textAlign":49},[654],{"text":655,"type":580},"But the deal might be a cause for concern for the rest of the industry — it comes shortly after the large supply deal announced in March between the world’s largest cobalt producer, Glencore, and Chinese based refiner and recycler GEM. Volumes are based on the weight of cobalt contained in hydroxide:",{"type":582,"attrs":657,"content":658},{"textAlign":49},[659],{"text":660,"type":580},"The numbers represent around a third of Glencore’s forecasted production, fuelling the fear of security of supply for the industry. This was only heightened following comments from Glencore’s CEO Ivan Glasenberg at the FT Commodities Global Summit in Switzerland regarding Chinese players being more aggressive in securing cobalt deals, leaving little material available for long term deals for other regions.",{"type":582,"attrs":662,"content":663},{"textAlign":49},[664],{"text":665,"type":580},"Glasenberg even went one step further, stating that as a company Glencore would have no qualms about selling their copper-cobalt assets to Chinese buyers at the right price. Chinese dominance continues to grow in the supply chain, in 2017 Benchmark estimated that 56% of the world’s cobalt was refined within China, a significant percentage. Even more alarming is the fact that China refined over 80% of the world’s cobalt chemicals in the same year, the form used for lithium ion batteries.",{"type":582,"attrs":667,"content":668},{"textAlign":49},[669],{"text":670,"type":580},"The JV between LG Chem and Huayou only serves to highlight that for a company to survive in this increasingly competitive market vertical integration is one of the key components to (what is likely to be) the successful business model that can monopolise on this once in a lifetime bull market.","Over $440 million will be invested in two joint ventures, sending shockwaves across the industry Korean battery major LG Chem and China’s Huayou Cobalt have announced a huge deal to launch two plants that will have a significant bearing on the lithium ion battery industry’s cathode direction. The partnership will see a 40,000 tpa lithium […]",[673],{"slug":562,"name":563,"content":674},{"job_title":565,"image":675,"bio":568,"linkedin":569},{"filename":567},"\u003C!--#storyblok#{\"name\": \"article\", \"space\": \"\", \"uid\": \"38dbaf9b-3cb8-44ab-8c90-dd9cca90ac93\", \"id\": \"\"}-->","article",[679,682,684,686,689],{"slug":680,"name":681},"batteries","Batteries",{"slug":683,"name":300},"cathode",{"slug":685,"name":115},"cobalt",{"slug":687,"name":688},"critical-minerals","Critical Minerals",{"slug":690,"name":691},"ev","EV","private",{"id":49,"alt":694,"name":694,"focus":694,"title":694,"source":694,"filename":695,"copyright":694,"fieldtype":696,"meta_data":697,"is_external_url":51},"","https://a.storyblok.com/f/287943243085208/2548a24556/bm-img-2274-4.jpg","asset",{"alt":694,"title":694,"source":694,"copyright":694},"Jun 15, 2018","15th June 2018",[],[],1789748880706]