51.7 billion huge investment! The four giants of the lithium industry chain of "meeting friends with mines" in Yuxi gathered together.

Yuxi City is building a lithium power "club". On the evening of February 16, relevant companies jointly announced that 600096.SH, Enjie shares (002812.SZ), Yiwei Lithium Energy (300014.SZ) and Huayou Cobalt (603799.SH) controlling shareholder Huayou Holdings signed a new energy battery industry chain project cooperation agreement with Yuxi City, with a total investment of 51.7 billion yuan in the first two phases of the project.

Yuxi City can "call friends", its strength may come from its undervalued lithium ore resources, according to a reporter from Yunnan Investment Promotion Network, Hongta District, Yuxi City, Xiaoshiqiao (hereinafter referred to as "Xiaoshiqiao Lithium Mine") lithium oxide resources as high as 4.89 million tons, in the lithium industry chain "to solve the problem of resource security, in order to effectively expand production capacity" at the moment, is undoubtedly very attractive.

Around Lithium electricity "throwing" 51.7 billion

According to the announcement, the four companies, as Party B and Party A Yuxi City, signed a cooperation agreement on the new energy battery industry chain project (hereinafter referred to as the "Industry Agreement"). The parties agreed to jointly exploit mineral resources and carry out mineral deep processing, jointly develop, produce and sell new energy batteries and upstream and downstream materials of new energy batteries, and promote the construction of new energy battery industry chain. Jointly promote the formation of hundreds of billions of new energy battery industry chain clusters in Yuxi City.

The main projects of the Industrial Agreement are "Mineral Resources Cooperative Development Project" and "Construction of Battery, separator and Battery positive and negative electrode Materials and other supporting projects" (hereinafter referred to as "Battery and supporting projects").

Among them, the mineral resources cooperative development project has set up two companies, one mainly engaged in the development of mineral resources, and the other mainly engaged in deep processing of mineral resources. The basic shareholding structure of the two joint ventures is: the Yuxi municipal government or its main body holds 23% of the shares, which is the largest shareholder; Enjie shares, Yiwei LiNeng, Huayou Holdings and Yuntianhua hold 22%, 20%, 18% and 17% respectively.

The battery and supporting projects are planned to be divided into three phases, of which the first phase of the project promises to invest about 18.05 billion yuan, which will be completed by December 31, 2023, and the second phase of the project will be completed by December 31, 2025. The third phase of the project is scheduled to be completed before 2030, with a total of 51.7 billion yuan in the first and second phases, and the project company will be directly established by Party B.

In principle, the project company whose main business involves the advantageous industries of one party shall be led by that party, and other parties (including Party An or its designated investors) may choose to participate appropriately.

It is reported that Yuntianhua, as a phosphorus chemical giant, has planned a 500000 ton / year iron phosphate project; Huayou Cobalt, a subsidiary of Huayou Holdings, is the global leader in the cobalt industry; Enjie, the diaphragm leader, has a 39% domestic market share; Yiwei LiNeng ranked eighth with 2.92 GWH domestic power batteries in 2021.

In addition, 002805.SZ has already joined the Bureau. In January this year, the company disclosed that it intends to invest 200000 tons of lithium battery high-energy cathode material projects and supporting construction of corresponding scale lithium salt and iron phosphate projects within the jurisdiction of Yuxi City, Yunnan Province, which will be completed in stages before 2025. Among them, the first phase includes an annual output of 50, 000 tons of lithium iron phosphate cathode materials and 1000 tons of clay lithium extraction pilot line.

"meeting friends with mines" in Yuxi City

The tight supply of power batteries has become one of the reasons for the limited production capacity of the brands of hot-selling new energy vehicles, while the tight supply of power batteries is directed at the upstream lithium mines, which can be mismatched even in the 300750.SZ era. "there is nothing we can do about the rise in the price of raw materials (lithium) in the short term."

At present, the domestic lithium ore resources are mainly mica in Jiangxi, spodumene in Sichuan and salt lakes in Qinghai-Tibet, but the market may underestimate the lithium resources in Yuxi.

According to the reporter's reference to the Yunnan Investment Promotion Network, the Xiaoshiqiao Lithium Mine, through scientific research demonstration and exploration, shows that under 3800 square kilometers of land in central Yunnan, the lithium oxide resource is as high as 4.89 million tons, and the deposit is carbonate clay type lithium.

If calculated according to the conversion coefficient of lithium oxide and lithium carbonate equivalent LCE, the lithium carbonate equivalent LCE of Xiaoshiqiao lithium mine is as high as 12.07 million tons, accounting for about 1/4 of the national total, which is a world-class lithium ore. Li Shihua, director of the Science and Technology Bureau of Yuxi City, said, "according to the data obtained from previous scientific research, the average grade of lithium ore in central Yunnan is about 0.3%, with a maximum of 1.02%. According to the relevant evaluation criteria, the average grade of 0.2% is of economic mining value."

But lithium ore is only one link. Yuxi also has phosphate and nickel ore resources, as well as a certain scale of yellow phosphorus, phosphoric acid, nickel hydroxide and nickel production capacity, as well as ironmaking capacity, Fengyuan said. It is worth mentioning that in the battery and supporting projects, Yun Tianhua said that the company's investment was launched after Party An approved the chemical park and Yuntianhua obtained the corresponding phosphate rock resources in accordance with the law.

Researchers related to Huaan Securities's new metal materials told the Financial Associated Press that most domestic lithium salt enterprises are mainly lithium salt processing, so most of them are faced with the problem of raw material shortfall. Only by solving the problem of resource security can we effectively expand production capacity and improve market share and profitability in the rapid development of the lithium power industry. "Mining" or Yuxi City can attract many lithium industry chain giants one of the reasons.

Some people in the industry said that clay lithium extraction has both the advantages of short process of extracting lithium from ore and the cost advantage of extracting lithium from salt lake, but at present, lithium extraction from clay has not been industrialized, and the process needs to be further demonstrated.