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Earths",172.08,171.72,0.21,20.59,30.21,[427,428,430,433,436,439,442,445,448,451,454,457],{"date":262,"value":421},{"date":429,"value":422},"2026-10-01",{"date":431,"value":432},"2026-09-03",170.83,{"date":434,"value":435},"2026-08-20",169.63,{"date":437,"value":438},"2026-08-06",172.28,{"date":440,"value":441},"2026-07-23",173.94,{"date":443,"value":444},"2026-07-09",171.69,{"date":446,"value":447},"2026-06-25",168.55,{"date":449,"value":450},"2026-06-11",165,{"date":452,"value":453},"2026-05-28",163.89,{"date":455,"value":456},"2026-05-14",172.63,{"date":209,"value":458},175.6,"/rare-earths/prices",{"publishedDate":198,"updateFrequency":187,"updateFrequencyText":188,"label":461,"today":462,"last":463,"percentageChange":464,"yearToDate":465,"yearOnYear":466,"oneYearIndexTrend":467,"url":377,"subscription":49,"isProtected":50,"hasAccess":51},"NCM Mid-Nickel",152.7,162.48,-6.02,17.38,53.11,[468,469,470,472,474,476,478,480,482,484,486,488],{"date":198,"value":462},{"date":200,"value":463},{"date":203,"value":471},171.08,{"date":206,"value":473},173.65,{"date":209,"value":475},164.53,{"date":212,"value":477},157.28,{"date":215,"value":479},151.44,{"date":218,"value":481},144.5,{"date":221,"value":483},130.09,{"date":224,"value":485},124.6,{"date":227,"value":487},122.35,{"date":255,"value":489},103.5,{"publishedDate":198,"updateFrequency":187,"updateFrequencyText":188,"label":491,"today":492,"last":493,"percentageChange":494,"yearToDate":495,"yearOnYear":496,"oneYearIndexTrend":497,"url":377,"subscription":49,"isProtected":50,"hasAccess":51},"NCM High-Nickel",144.45,149.67,-3.49,26.69,49.06,[498,499,500,502,504,506,508,510,512,514,516,518],{"date":198,"value":492},{"date":200,"value":493},{"date":203,"value":501},157.37,{"date":206,"value":503},160,{"date":209,"value":505},149.53,{"date":212,"value":507},141.97,{"date":215,"value":509},136.99,{"date":218,"value":511},129.81,{"date":221,"value":513},114.02,{"date":224,"value":515},109.17,{"date":227,"value":517},109.02,{"date":255,"value":519},99.44,{"publishedDate":198,"updateFrequency":187,"updateFrequencyText":188,"label":521,"today":522,"last":523,"percentageChange":524,"yearToDate":525,"yearOnYear":526,"oneYearIndexTrend":527,"url":377,"subscription":49,"isProtected":50,"hasAccess":51},"LFP",229.17,218.34,4.96,49.35,83.44,[528,529,530,532,534,536,538,540,542,544,546,548],{"date":198,"value":522},{"date":200,"value":523},{"date":203,"value":531},239.1,{"date":206,"value":533},258.32,{"date":209,"value":535},239.37,{"date":212,"value":537},213.01,{"date":215,"value":539},204.49,{"date":218,"value":541},218.06,{"date":221,"value":543},153.45,{"date":224,"value":545},134.02,{"date":227,"value":547},118.22,{"date":255,"value":549},111.93,{"id":551,"uuid":552,"name":553,"slug":554,"full_slug":555,"content":556,"relatedArticles":802,"relatedVideos":803},112474583510063,"52ca5caa-3b50-4e26-8e2e-3efead12f604","Unleashing the cathode dragon","unleashing-the-cathode-dragon","article/unleashing-the-cathode-dragon",{"_uid":557,"date":558,"tags":559,"editor":560,"content":570,"excerpt":778,"featured":50,"reporter":779,"_editable":783,"component":784,"seo_title":553,"categories":785,"visibility":794,"author_company":49,"featured_image":795,"seo_description":778,"author_full_name":49,"author_job_title":49,"formattedDate":800,"formattedArticleDate":801},"2e7e5131-9b3e-480b-bdbd-13d2c1cce35e","2018-06-18 00:00",[],[561],{"slug":562,"name":563,"content":564},"didi-bostock","Didi Bostock",{"job_title":565,"image":566,"bio":568,"linkedin":569},"Editor - Energy Transition & Economics",{"filename":567},"https://a.storyblok.com/f/287943243085208/512x512/2c5ca5c1a3/didi-bostock.jpeg","Didi is the Energy Transition & Economics Editor at Benchmark, covering a broad range of markets across the energy transition. His remit spans from downstream sectors such as BESS and EVs, through to midstream such as new technologies and battery production, to upstream critical minerals mining. He also leads on financial analysis across these supply chains, alongside in-depth policy analysis.\n","https://www.linkedin.com/in/didi-bostock-656342198/",{"type":571,"content":572},"doc",[573,581,586,592,597,602,609,614,619,628,633,639,644,649,655,660,666,671,677,682,688,693,698,703,709,714,719,724,734,739,745,750,756,761,767,772],{"type":574,"attrs":575,"content":577},"heading",{"level":576,"textAlign":49},3,[578],{"text":579,"type":580},"China’s lithium ion battery cathode industry has surged in line with the country’s game-changing EV output. The size of this market opportunity requires bold expansion plans from China’s cathode manufacturers.","text",{"type":574,"attrs":582,"content":583},{"level":576,"textAlign":49},[584],{"text":585,"type":580},"Benchmark Mineral Intelligence talked with Liang Chen, Market Development Manager, International Marketing at Ronbay Material on its blueprint to build 100,000 tpa of NCM in the next three years and how high lithium prices have impacted the business.",{"type":587,"attrs":588,"content":589},"paragraph",{"textAlign":49},[590],{"text":591,"type":580},"Ronbay Material (Ningbo Ronbay Lithium Battery Material Co., Ltd.) is a high tech new energy material enterprise and a transnational group for professional research and provides precursor and cathode material for lithium batteries.",{"type":587,"attrs":593,"content":594},{"textAlign":49},[595],{"text":596,"type":580},"Established by Beijing Ronbay Investment Holdings Co., Ltd and restructured in September 2014, the corporation was built by two teams from China and South Korea both with entrepreneurial experience of more than 20 years’ in the field. Subsidiary companies include cathode and precursor factories in Yuyao in Zhejiang, Hubei Ronbay Lithium Battery Material Co., Ltd., Guizhou Ronbay Lithium Battery Material Co., Ltd., Beijing Ronbay New Energy Research Centre., JS (Korea) Co., Ltd. and EMT (Korea) Co., Ltd., and shares in TMR (Korea)Co. Ltd. Products are applied in small size/ power/ energy storage lithium ion batteries.",{"type":587,"attrs":598,"content":599},{"textAlign":49},[600],{"text":601,"type":580},"Benchmark Mineral Intelligence: How would you describe your cathode technology and advantages?",{"type":587,"attrs":603,"content":604},{"textAlign":49},[605,607],{"text":606,"type":580},"Liang Chen: ",{"text":608,"type":580},"Ronbay has over 15 years’ experience in producing NCM/NCA cathode materials and was one of the earliest producers in China. Its products now include NCM333, NCM523, NCM622, NCM811, and NCA. Most of the precursors the company is using are self-made, and the company has rich experience in general technical adjustment and modification in the supplier chain.",{"type":587,"attrs":610,"content":611},{"textAlign":49},[612],{"text":613,"type":580},"Ronbay is also the first company in China that can produce NCM811 in scale, with technical advantages in the high nickel cathode field.",{"type":587,"attrs":615,"content":616},{"textAlign":49},[617],{"text":618,"type":580},"Benchmark: Where are your main customers in and outside China, and what trends are you seeing with your customers?",{"type":587,"attrs":620,"content":621},{"textAlign":49},[622,624,626],{"text":623,"type":580},"LC: ",{"text":625,"type":580},"For now, Ronbay’s customers are based in China and South Korea, with the main market in China. This is because the NEV industry is developing swiftly in China, as are Chinese lithium ion battery producers — for example, Ronbay’s sales increased over 100% every year in 2015-2017. In particular in 2016, China’s NEV industry development began to pick up speed and power battery demand quickly increased for the NEV market. In this period Ronbay made huge progress in expanding its domestic power battery customers, but is still keeping",{"text":627,"type":580},"a close watch on South Korea and Japan, and exploiting the markets there.",{"type":587,"attrs":629,"content":630},{"textAlign":49},[631],{"text":632,"type":580},"Benchmark: Which downstream markets do you sell into, what is the most important market and which market has the most potential?",{"type":587,"attrs":634,"content":635},{"textAlign":49},[636,637],{"text":623,"type":580},{"text":638,"type":580},"Ronbay’s customers include 3C electronic battery, power battery and energy storage battery businesses, and in these three fields the company has already invested significant resources into R&D and strategy planning.",{"type":587,"attrs":640,"content":641},{"textAlign":49},[642],{"text":643,"type":580},"Looking at current development trends, in the short-term we expect the power battery field to be the fastest developing but in the longer-term ESS has huge development potential as well.",{"type":587,"attrs":645,"content":646},{"textAlign":49},[647],{"text":648,"type":580},"Benchmark: What are the changes in these markets in future?",{"type":587,"attrs":650,"content":651},{"textAlign":49},[652,653],{"text":623,"type":580},{"text":654,"type":580},"In the next few years the LiB market will continue its fast development in both China and South Korea and power battery will be the fastest developing field. We expect demand growth to exceed 30% each year and for the traditional 3C (electronic) battery to continue producing approximately 7% growth. Meanwhile ESS will also enter a fast growth stage in the next few years.",{"type":587,"attrs":656,"content":657},{"textAlign":49},[658],{"text":659,"type":580},"Benchmark: What is the company’s plan to expand capacity?",{"type":587,"attrs":661,"content":662},{"textAlign":49},[663,664],{"text":623,"type":580},{"text":665,"type":580},"Ronbay plans to increase capacity to 100,000 tpa NCM cathode in the next three years, including a 30,000 tpa capacity in 2018, and a new 70,000 tpa capacity expansion boost in 2019 and 2020.",{"type":587,"attrs":667,"content":668},{"textAlign":49},[669],{"text":670,"type":580},"Benchmark: What difference do you expect to see in the next 5 years in the Chinese cathode market?",{"type":587,"attrs":672,"content":673},{"textAlign":49},[674,675],{"text":623,"type":580},{"text":676,"type":580},"In the next three years, cathode producers in China will swiftly transfer from producing NCM523 to NCM811 and NCA cathodes. Power battery will be the main field for NCM/NCA. While power battery demand increases and cathode material technology upgrades, the consolidation of cathode producers will be highly concentrated — from over 300 producers currently, to a competition of only around 10 cathode producers. After consolidation, each producer’s scale and technical level will increase greatly.",{"type":587,"attrs":678,"content":679},{"textAlign":49},[680],{"text":681,"type":580},"Benchmark: What is the bottleneck to deal with in the LiB supply chain? Do you have any suggestions on how to solve these problems?",{"type":587,"attrs":683,"content":684},{"textAlign":49},[685,686],{"text":623,"type":580},{"text":687,"type":580},"Currently in the LiB industrial chain, source material, lithium and price fluctuations are a huge hidden hazard for the industry’s stable development. The greatly increased price of lithium and cobalt since 2016 has already had a profound impact on this industry. In the long-term, lithium and cobalt prices will always be the problem to face and solve during LiB industrial development.",{"type":587,"attrs":689,"content":690},{"textAlign":49},[691],{"text":692,"type":580},"Lithium prices increased from 2016 and 2017 where a lot of investors entered the market with new projects, in turn capacity will increase greatly. It is expected that lithium prices will gradually return to a normal state.",{"type":587,"attrs":694,"content":695},{"textAlign":49},[696],{"text":697,"type":580},"Cobalt prices aren’t likely to fall back due to its scarcity and specific distribution area in the world. But with technological advances, high nickel cathode will have large scale applications and battery recycling will keep increasing. In turn, LiB’s demand for cobalt will eventually balance out, and won’t need to replenish new cobalt, which LiB’s reliance on cobalt will eventually diminish.",{"type":587,"attrs":699,"content":700},{"textAlign":49},[701],{"text":702,"type":580},"Benchmark: What do you think will happen to China’s LiB development in the future?",{"type":587,"attrs":704,"content":705},{"textAlign":49},[706,707],{"text":623,"type":580},{"text":708,"type":580},"China is one of the most important LiB markets in the world and it will continue its high-speed development in the future. But in terms of technology level, companies in China, including battery and cathode/anode material producers still lag behind Japanese and South Korean companies.",{"type":587,"attrs":710,"content":711},{"textAlign":49},[712],{"text":713,"type":580},"But still, relying on the fast development of China’s new energy market and its growing demand, Chinese companies have already made a lot of progress in the past few years. In terms of both technology and production scale, they are gradually catching up with Japanese and South Korean companies.",{"type":587,"attrs":715,"content":716},{"textAlign":49},[717],{"text":718,"type":580},"As for the future, not only the LiB market in China, but also the whole world’s LiB market will continue its high-speed growth.",{"type":587,"attrs":720,"content":721},{"textAlign":49},[722],{"text":723,"type":580},"Benchmark: What do you think of the trends for lithium carbonate and hydroxide in the short-term and long-term, and why?",{"type":587,"attrs":725,"content":726},{"textAlign":49},[727,728,730,732],{"text":623,"type":580},{"text":729,"type":580},"In the short-term, both lithium carbonate and hydroxide prices will continue to fluctuate,",{"text":731,"type":580},"but in the long-term will gradually reduce to a level below 100,000 CNY/tonne.",{"text":733,"type":580},"The short-term lithium salt price will also continue to fluctuate because supply is still concentrated. Over 80% of supply is dominated by a few large corporations, they have formed a consensus to maintain the current price. In the long-term, as new lithium salt producers enter the market the current supply and demand situation will change and prices will gradually reduce.",{"type":587,"attrs":735,"content":736},{"textAlign":49},[737],{"text":738,"type":580},"Benchmark: What do you think is the biggest risk in source material supply?",{"type":587,"attrs":740,"content":741},{"textAlign":49},[742,743],{"text":623,"type":580},{"text":744,"type":580},"For now, cathode producers believe that the biggest risk in source material supply is the greatly fluctuating price. This would push up the price of cathode material and will adversely affect the EV supply chain and the electrification of the world. This will also affect downstream customers’ price judgement — they will delay their purchases, and our sales will be affected.",{"type":587,"attrs":746,"content":747},{"textAlign":49},[748],{"text":749,"type":580},"Benchmark: In cathode technology, what do you think of cobalt’s character?",{"type":587,"attrs":751,"content":752},{"textAlign":49},[753,754],{"text":623,"type":580},{"text":755,"type":580},"Cobalt will always have some influence in cathode materials, but its influence will slowly reduce as the promotion of high nickel material and battery recycling makes an impact in the industry.",{"type":587,"attrs":757,"content":758},{"textAlign":49},[759],{"text":760,"type":580},"Benchmark: What are your expectations for high nickel products and technology applications?",{"type":587,"attrs":762,"content":763},{"textAlign":49},[764,765],{"text":623,"type":580},{"text":766,"type":580},"At present, high nickel material is a very defined technical route in cathode material development. An important problem to solve is the safety and high temperature performance issues of high nickel material in LiB, but these technical complications all have technical solutions. In the future, high nickel material will soon be applied in products and batteries on a large scale.",{"type":587,"attrs":768,"content":769},{"textAlign":49},[770],{"text":771,"type":580},"Benchmark: Are there other technical trends in cathode that you find meaningful or have some expectations for?",{"type":587,"attrs":773,"content":774},{"textAlign":49},[775,776],{"text":623,"type":580},{"text":777,"type":580},"The development trend in cathode material is a process to keep improving on safety and stability. A key development area will be in the cathode material for solid state batteries.","China’s lithium ion battery cathode industry has surged in line with the country’s game-changing EV output. The size of this market opportunity requires bold expansion plans from China’s cathode manufacturers. Benchmark Mineral Intelligence talked with Liang Chen, Market Development Manager, International Marketing at Ronbay Material on its blueprint to build 100,000 tpa of NCM in […]",[780],{"slug":562,"name":563,"content":781},{"job_title":565,"image":782,"bio":568,"linkedin":569},{"filename":567},"\u003C!--#storyblok#{\"name\": \"article\", \"space\": \"\", \"uid\": \"2e7e5131-9b3e-480b-bdbd-13d2c1cce35e\", \"id\": \"\"}-->","article",[786,789,791],{"slug":787,"name":788},"batteries","Batteries",{"slug":790,"name":299},"cathode",{"slug":792,"name":793},"critical-minerals","Critical Minerals","private",{"id":49,"alt":796,"name":796,"focus":796,"title":796,"source":796,"filename":797,"copyright":796,"fieldtype":798,"meta_data":799,"is_external_url":51},"","https://a.storyblok.com/f/287943243085208/4f2def8c64/bm-source-wendy-piersall.jpg","asset",{"alt":796,"title":796,"source":796,"copyright":796},"Jun 18, 2018","18th June 2018",[],[],1792688598467]