News Roundup for New Energy Market

SHANGHAI, Dec 7 (SMM)  –  A weekly update on the trending stories from the New Energy sector.

1. Tibet Summit Resources Co. and the government of Salta province of Argentina signed the Investment Agreement on Salt Lake Resource Industrialisation Development Project in Salta on November 16, which involves two salt lake development projects with a total investment of $1.7 billion.

Tibet Summit Resources and its affiliated company will invest approximately $700 million to build a 50,000 mt/year lithium carbonate project in the Angeles Salt Lake in Salta. The project is scheduled to start construction before the end of 2021 and will be completed before the end of 2022. At the same time, the company will also invest $15 million to complete the geological exploration of the Arizaro Salt Lake in Salta in 2022, and obtain mining rights and environmental assessment permits (EIA). The company also plans to invest no less than $1 billion in Arizaro Salt Lake to build an annual production capacity of 50,000-100,000 mt of lithium carbonate products. Driven by robust demand from the new energy industry, the prices of lithium salt-related products have climbed steadily in recent years. Many companies around the world have invested and developed lithium salt lake projects in Argentina, and development of the previously built local projects has also accelerated.

2. Capchem announced that it intends to build an electronic chemicals project via its wholly-owned subsidiary Zhuhai Capchem. The total investment of the project will be about 1.2 billion yuan, and the first phase will take 28 months to be built. The project will be gradually put into operation in H1 2024.

Capchem also plans to build an electromagnetic materials and semiconductor chemicals project via its wholly-owned subsidiary Chongqing Capchem. The project will have a total investment of about 784 million yuan and will be built in two phases. The first phase will have an annual capacity of 100,000 mt of lithium-ion battery electrolyte and materials, and the second phase will have an annual capacity of 100,000 mt of lithium-ion battery electrolyte and materials, as well as 80,000 mt of semiconductor chemicals. The project is scheduled to be gradually put into production in H1 2024. Capchem stated that it has established sophisticated industrial layout across south, east, central, north and south-east China by establishing many production bases for lithium-ion battery electrolytes and semiconductor chemicals. The new investment will further boost its development.

3. On November 30, the initial public offering of the global lithium-ion battery manufacturing giant LG Energy Solution has passed the preliminary review of listing eligibility.

LG Energy Solution still needs to submit corresponding documents to South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service after passing the preliminary review. It is expected that the company will be officially listed in January next year the earliest. Once LG Energy Solution completes the IPO, it is expected to raise 10-15 trillion won ($8.5-12.7 billion), and its total valuation may reach 100 trillion won, setting a record for the largest IPO in South Korea.