Prices of cobalt, nickel and manganese rose after CNY. Prices of cobalt salt also climbed due to disrupted raw material transportation and strong demand.

The delivery ceremony of a high-pressure reactor, a core equipment of the hydro-metallurgy project at Huayue Nickel & Cobablt (Indonesia) of Huayou Cobalt & Morimatsu, was held at Morimatsu’s Nantong factory on November 20.  Since then, all four high-pressure reactors have been completed and delivered, marking that the Huayue project is about to enter a new stage of key equipment installation.

During November 17-20, SMM new energy business director Wang Tian and marketing consultant Yu Lei led SMM staff and members of the delegation to visit lithium battery raw material producers in Hunan in order to seek more in-depth cooperation opportunities. Their first stop was Hunan Kingfuli New Energy Co., Ltd.

Sellers of spot copper cathode cut offers on the morning of Friday May 8 as they were keen to cash in while a further rally in copper futures sidelined downstream consumers. 

Stringent coronavirus containment measures imposed by world authorities in March began to take their toll on supply of imported copper scrap in China, which accounts for about 60% of copper scrap consumption in the country, showed the latest SMM survey.

Demand remained subdued in China’s cobalt market last week while a handful of consumers purchased as required. The market may find some near-term support from the extended national lockdown of South Africa, which will last until end April and aim to curb the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Chinese power battery recycling giant GEM will team up with South Korean cathode materials manufacturer EcoPro to produce high-nickel ternary precursor products for electric vehicle batteries. GEM said on Monday April 13 that its subsidiary Fuan Qingmei Energy Materials Co., Ltd. has penned a memorandum of understanding with EcoPro to establish a joint venture (JV) in Ningde, in South China’s Fujian province.

SMM surveyed 41 major aluminium processors in 12 provinces and found that their average operating rate dipped 0.6 percentage point on a weekly basis to 74.4% last week.

China's production of ternary precursor, which is used to produce ternary materials for power and digital batteries, rebounded 66.4% from a month ago due to the recovery of operations and logistics after the effective containment of COVID-19 in China.

The state-owned China Southern Power Grid company has planned to accelerate its investment in new energy vehicle charging facilities in the coming years, as part of the move to develop "new infrastructure" projects for boosting sustainable growth of the economy.