"attack the city"
The first overseas battery factory in the Ningde era finally made a breakthrough.
According to official sources from the Ningde era, the first overseas factory of the Ningde era in the German state of Thuringia was officially licensed for the production of batteries on April 4, marking a landmark step in the global layout of the Ningde era.
The Ningde era German plant, which began construction in 2019, is the first battery factory in Germany, which mainly consists of two parts: G1 is a plant purchased from other companies to assemble cells into modules, and G2 is a new plant for the production of batteries. This license is for G2 cell production license.
The plant, with a total investment of 1.8 billion euros and planned production capacity of 14GWh, is licensed by 8GWh and is currently in the stage of equipment installation, making the final sprint for the first batch of cells to be offline by the end of 2022. At that time, it will provide quality products and services to the major German automobile manufacturers.
At present, German customers in Ningde era include BMW, Volkswagen, Daimler and so on, and all of them have increased their supply. With the smooth landing of the production capacity of Thuringen Battery Factory, it is beneficial to supporting relevant customers nearby in Ningde era and greatly saves costs.
In addition to the planned German factory to be put into mass production, the Ningde-era overseas "siege" plan has recently added a hot option-the United States.
Ningde Times is considering investing $5 billion to build a battery factory in North America to supply customers, including Tesla, according to people familiar with the matter.
According to the report, the new Ningde Times plant aims to produce nickel-manganese-cobalt batteries and lithium iron phosphate batteries with an annual capacity of up to 80GWh, and will employ nearly 10, 000 people.
Ningde-era executives flew to Mexico for a meeting earlier this month, the person familiar with the matter said. At the same time, Canada is also under consideration for the location of the new plant. A spokesman for the Ningde era declined to comment.
Although the Ningde era revealed plans to build a factory in the United States, problems such as the training of foreign employees and local policies and national conditions need to be solved before the plant is built. The latest news is that South Korea's three major battery manufacturers LG New Energy, SK On and Samsung SDI have been asked to "share core technical data" in the process of investing in the United States.
From this point of view, it is not easy to go to the United States to build a factory in the Ningde era.
"slightly"
The appetite is as big as a cow, and the whole process of lithium battery production in Ningde era wants to "eat"!
Since 2022, the Ningde era has strongly planned the industrial closed-loop ecosystem around Sichuan and Yichun, two major lithium ore resources supply in China.
"Old Love" Sichuan
Enterprise investigation shows that on April 2, Sichuan Kant New Energy Resources Co., Ltd. (referred to as "Kant New Energy") was established, with Zhu Yunfeng as its legal representative, with a registered capital of 2 billion yuan, and its business scope includes: research and development of emerging energy technologies; mineral processing; mineral processing; metal ore sales; precious metal smelting (except rare earths, radioactive minerals, tungsten), etc.
Equity penetration shows that the major shareholder of Kant New Energy is Sichuan Times New Energy Resources Co., Ltd. (referred to as "time Resources"), a wholly owned subsidiary of Ningde Times, with a stake of 40%. Other shareholders include: Sichuan Tianfu Mining Investment Co., Ltd. holds 29%, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture Investment and Development Group Co., Ltd. holds 20%, Yibin Sanjiang Huida New Energy Resources Co., Ltd. holds 11%.
Vico Lithium noted that the four major shareholders of Kant New Energy had signed a joint venture agreement earlier in February. According to the agreement, all parties will carry out all-round cooperation in line with the national strategic mineral security guarantee, speed up the exploration and development of lithium resources in Sichuan Province, increase the supply of lithium resources, and promote the coordinated development of the whole new energy industry chain. This also means that the establishment of Kant New Energy is the first landing of the content of quadripartite cooperation.
As for the cooperation, it is aimed at the development of lithium ore resources, because domestic spodumene ore is mainly distributed in Sichuan, accounting for more than 50% of the country's lithium ore.
In fact, the Ningde era has a long history with Sichuan. From 2019 to December 30, 2021, Ningde Times and Yibin City have successively signed Sichuan Times Power Battery Phase 1 to Phase 10 projects, with a planned capacity of 180GWh, with a total investment of 56 billion yuan.
And before the construction of Yibin base, Ningde era has already begun to layout supporting resources. Power battery industry chain supporting enterprises, there have been Geely Times, Changying Precision, Tianyi Lithium Industry, Guoguang Electric, Jiangsu Cathay Pacific, Kodali and other well-known listed companies in Yibin Luozi. Most of them have a cooperative relationship with the Ningde era.
"New Love" Yichun
Yichun, known as the "lithium capital of Asia", has the largest lithium mica mine in the world, with lithium oxide reserves as high as 5 million tons, and the exploitable lithium oxide accounts for 31% of the country and 12% of the world. In the aspect of building the ecosystem of Yichun base, Ningde era adopted almost the same operation path as Yibin.
The first is to establish a battery production base. On September 13, 2021, Ningde Times announced its intention to invest 13.5 billion yuan in the construction of a new lithium battery production base (Yichun).
The second is the supporting mining layout. On November 23, 2021, Yichun Times New Energy Resources Co., Ltd. (referred to as "Yichun Times Resources") was officially established. On March 4 this year, Yichun time Resources took a stake in Yichun time Mining, with a shareholding ratio of 65%. Both companies cover the mining of mineral resources.
The last is to plan the construction of battery raw material production capacity. With the "men" of lithium mining, it is necessary to consider who will build the raw material production capacity after mining, which is the main focus of the layout of Yichun in the Ningde era so far in 2022.
Since last year, Ningde Times has absorbed the new project of Lithium material Company in Yichun through investment and other ways. In January this year, Ningde Times set up three joint ventures in the latest investment in Yichun to carry out the construction of lithium carbonate capacity projects.
To sum up, it is not difficult to see that the layout logic of the battery production base in Ningde era is in the aspects of lithium resource mining, mineral processing, smelting, key materials and spare parts of lithium battery, lithium-ion battery / energy storage battery, lithium battery recycling and so on. to form a complete industrial closed-loop ecosystem. In addition, the Ningde era is also "doing the same" to build the whole industrial chain base in Guizhou.
Summary
From January to February this year, the global installed capacity of the Ningde era was 18.4GWh, with a market share of 34.4 per cent, achieving its goal of occupying 30 per cent of the global market. But this is only a phased victory, the "hidden danger" of the Ningde era is that almost all the shares come from domestic customers, and at present, the domestic car companies are "tacit understanding" to "go to the Ningde era".
Rival BYD's domestic battery share rose to 21.07% from January to February this year, further narrowing the gap with the Ningde era. And it has just been reported that BYD's blade batteries will be purchased by Xilai and Xiaomi; the only cooperation between Tesla and BYD is Guan Xuan.
