Glencore takes a stake in Britishvolt, a British lithium-ion battery factory, to sign a long-term supply agreement for cobalt resources

International mining giant Glencore announced on Tuesday that it had reached a long-term cooperation agreement with British lithium-ion battery manufacturer Britishvolt for cobalt resources and bought a stake in Britishvolt. However, Glencore did not disclose the specific amount of investment and shareholding.

Britishvolt, founded in 2019, is building the country's first giant battery plant in northern England and plans to expand the capacity of electric car batteries through the tuyere of the UK's 2030 ban on the sale of gasoline and diesel vehicles. In order to train local battery factories to keep pace with the changing times, the British government has pledged to invest 1 billion pounds to help companies with the ability to mass-produce batteries to build factories.

Working with mining giants has become the most urgent task for battery companies to achieve their vision of rapid growth over the next decade, and industry leaders such as Tesla have more than once expressed anxiety about the supply of raw materials. Orral Nadjari, founder and CEO of Britishvolt, said the partnership with Glencore was the right and significant step in accelerating the transformation of a low-carbon society, and the partnership allowed the company to lock in supplies and reduce the risk of the entire project.

Glencore produced a total of 27400 tonnes of cobalt in 2020, down nearly 40 per cent from the same period in 2019. Most of that capacity is a by-product of copper mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which have attracted widespread attention because of issues such as labour abuse. This has also led to the introduction of blockchain technology by a number of energy companies to assure customers that there are no moral problems in the process of mining the supplied cobalt. In addition to Britishvolt, Glencore signed similar agreements with Tesla last year to supply cobalt to super factories in Shanghai and Berlin.

Britishvolt's current plant construction plan in Northumberland is divided into three phases and will achieve 30GWh/ capacity when it is completed in 2027, enough to supply 300000 electric vehicles, according to the company.