Recently, Ganfeng Lithium Industry said in a survey by investors that the company will have a production capacity of 81000 tons of lithium hydroxide, 40500 tons of lithium carbonate and 1600 tons of lithium metal in 2021, and will add 40, 000 tons of battery-grade lithium carbonate to Argentina's Cauchari-Olaroz Lithium Salt Lake project in 2022.
According to reports, the lithium resources currently held by Ganfeng Lithium Industry mainly include Australia's Mount Marion, Pilgangoora and Ireland's Avalonia; brine resources, mainly Argentina's Mariana and Cauchari-Olaroz; Mexico's Sonora lithium clay; the company continues to pay attention to high-quality upstream resources at home and abroad.
In terms of lithium resources underwriting, Ganfeng Lithium Industry currently underwrites 400000 tons / year lithium concentrate of MountMarion project; 310000 tons / year lithium concentrate of phase 1 and 2 of Pilgangoora project; 75% production capacity of battery-grade lithium carbonate products of Argentina Cauchari-Olaroz brine project; and 160000 tons / year lithium concentrate of Manono project.
Ganfeng Lithium Industry said that it will expand its production capacity according to the future market demand changes and evaluation of lithium products, and plans to form an annual capacity of 100000 tons of LCE (lithium carbonate equivalent) ore and 100000 tons of LCE brine and clay in 2025. The future layout will mainly focus on the development of salt lakes in Argentina and lithium clay projects in Mexico.
Globally, the main source of lithium is still lithium ore, and it is mainly concentrated in the "lithium triangle" region composed of Argentina, Chile and Bolivia. At present, Ganfeng Lithium Industry has one of the largest lithium extraction projects in Argentina's salt lake, and is expected to steadily supply tens of thousands of tons of lithium carbonate to the market every year in the future.
On May 6th, Ganfeng Lithium Industry issued an announcement on the mining rights investment and related party transactions involved in the tender offer of Shanghai Ganfeng for Bacanora, offering no more than 190 million pounds (about US $264 million / 1.706 billion yuan) for all issued shares of Bacanora (except Shanghai Ganfeng already held shares). The main asset is the Sonora lithium clay project in Mexico.
According to Battery China, Sonora is currently one of the largest lithium resource projects in the world. The project has the advantages of large amount of resources, easy to extract and high efficiency of lithium extraction. It can not only complete the lithium extraction process in a short time at the speed similar to that of ore extraction, but also complete lithium extraction at a lower cost at a cost similar to that of brine. According to the feasibility study report of the Sonora project, the total lithium resource of the project is about 8.82 million tons of lithium carbonate equivalent.
It is worth noting that on April 8, Ganfeng Lithium Industry announced that the company signed an "Investment contract" with the Yichun Economic Development District Management Committee and decided to invest in the construction of an annual lithium and lithium material project in Yichun by stages. it mainly includes metal lithium molten salt electrolysis, metal lithium low temperature vacuum distillation purification, lithium series alloys, solid-state lithium battery anode materials and other production lines.
Due to the strong demand for lithium materials in the downstream battery market, the first-quarter report released by Ganfeng Lithium Industry at the end of April showed that the company achieved a net profit of 476 million yuan in the first quarter of 2021, an increase of 6046.3 percent over the same period last year, and operating revenue of 1.607 billion yuan, an increase of 48.94 percent over the same period last year.
