Global Cobalt Demand Jumped Driven By Electric Vehicles

On March 12, PetroChina’s Tarim Oilfield “Aksu, Shaya County, Fuman Block PV Green Electricity Direct Connection Project” officially received approval from the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region National Development and Reform Commission, making it PetroChina’s first approved green electricity direct connection project. Located in the Taklamakan Desert south of Shaya County, Aksu Prefecture, Xinjiang, the project is a comprehensive green energy project integrating generation-grid-load-storage. According to the plan, the green electricity direct connection project will build a PV power station with a total installed capacity of 100,000 kW as the source of green power. To ensure stable power supply and reduce the curtailment of PV power generation, an additional 20 MW/80 MWh ESS power station will be added to serve as a super “power bank,” effectively smoothing PV fluctuations and ensuring continuous power supply to the load. Connecting the power supply and the power consumption side will be a planned 2.5-km direct power transmission line and a 110-kV substation.

Dali Era Energy Co., Ltd. has officially broken ground on its Wide-Temperature High-Rate Advanced Special-Purpose Lithium Battery R&D and Production Base in the Dali Economic and Technological Development Zone, Yunnan. With a total investment exceeding 1 billion yuan, the project covers 80 acres and has an 8-month construction timeline. Once operational, it will reach an annual capacity of 2GWh, targeting an annual revenue of 1.5 billion yuan and creating over 300 jobs. This facility focuses on advanced solid-state and special-purpose battery technologies designed for extreme environmental performance.

[Phosphorus Chemical Industry: Wengfu's Wet-Process 85 Phosphoric Acid Rose by 700 yuan/mt Within Half a Month, Pushing Iron Phosphate Production Costs Higher Under Pressure] On March 16, 2026, SMM reported that phosphorus giant Wengfu Group raised the ex-factory price of wet-process 85 phosphoric acid by 200 yuan/mt yesterday. Wengfu implemented a "price adjustment on every 5th" mechanism (the 5th, 15th, and 25th of each month). This marked the second price adjustment in March, bringing the cumulative increase to 700 yuan/mt (it had already increased by 500 yuan/mt on March 5). The continued increases in phosphoric acid prices brought significant cost pressure to new energy enterprises, while the production costs of iron phosphate via the iron-process and sodium-process routes rose by several hundred yuan accordingly.