Total planned investment is 1 billion! The commissioning of Xiongmai New Energy's lithium-sodium-ion battery project is expected to be completed by month-end

According to Red Metal Resources on September 3, the Farellon project, part of the company’s Carrizal copper-gold-cobalt property near Vallenar, Chile, has completed its first delivery of copper sulphide ore, marking the project’s transition from the development stage to actual ore sales and small-scale production. Project lessee and operator Minera KMT transported the first batch of ore to the Vallenar processing facility operated by Chile’s state-owned mining company ENAMI on August 20 and 21. The milestone came only about three months after the parties signed a mining agreement in May, around four months ahead of the original seven-month development schedule. Farellon is an important part of the Carrizal copper-gold-cobalt property. The first ore delivery is expected to generate royalty revenue for Red Metal and lay the groundwork for further expansion of mining and processing activities. The company has not yet disclosed the specific cobalt grade, cobalt output or recovery rate for the delivered ore. However, the project’s move into actual production and sales represents a new development in Chile’s cobalt resource pipeline outside Africa.

This week, the industry chain continued to consolidate on a weak note, with clear divergence between supply and demand. On the upstream side, raw material suppliers remained firm in holding prices, while downstream buyers continued to push for lower prices, widening the psychological price spread between buyers and sellers and making spot transactions difficult to advance. Some salt products came under pressure due to lower raw material costs, low-price selling by traders, and weak demand, with a few varieties already pulling back slightly. The price center of powder materials continued to shift lower, with weakening cost support, and the market remained in a bottoming phase. Midstream materials showed divergent performance: some precursors were dragged down by weaker nickel salts, with order coefficients under pressure and domestic production schedules subdued, though overseas high-nickel orders remained relatively stable. Cathode materials were affected by raw material price fluctuations and downward revisions in end-use orders, prompting battery cell manufacturers to restock cautiously, with domestic production schedules in September expected to decline. On the consumption side, the September-October peak season effect has yet to materialize clearly, with end-use demand recovery in mobile phones and other terminals remaining limited, and the industry chain overall dominated by just-in-time procurement and destocking. In the short term, the market lacks clear upward drivers, and prices are likely to continue consolidating on a subdued note. Going forward, the focus will be on the strength of September restocking, improvements in end-use orders, and changes in upstream pricing strategies.

On the last day of August 2026, SK On announced that it had signed a five-year supply contract for LFP pouch battery cells with US energy storage enterprise NeoVolta Power, with a total supply of 9 GWh, and an additional 9 GWh order may be added within the year, at which point the total scale of cooperation between the two parties is expected to expand to 18 GWh. Almost simultaneously, Samsung SDI was reported to be about to finalise a three-year LFP battery cell supply agreement with an ESS integrator, worth several trillion won, with an annual supply of several GWh.