China lithium miners restart after government investigation
Some mines in one of China’s major lithium-production hubs have been allowed to restart amid a government investigation that halted activity last week, according to a report in local media outlet
Cailian.
A probe into the mining industry in Yichun in the southeastern Jiangxi province forced sweeping closures last week, affecting around a 10th of the battery material’s global output.
All mines with valid government permits have already resumed production,
Cailian reported Tuesday, citing unnamed sources at mining companies.
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Yichun has been at the center of a lithium boom in the past two years, as soaring prices turned its low-grade ore — known as lepidolite — into a key source of additional supply.
Major companies in China’s battery supply-chain have invested in the area, while growth in the country’s lithium output from lepidolite has been central to some bearish forecasts for the metal.
“The impact of the latest shutdowns in Jiangxi is overblown,” said Cameron Perks, an analyst at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. The crackdown is targeting small-scale, illegal mining, and the bigger operations with licenses stopped work for just a few days, he said.
Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. didn’t immediately respond to a call seeking comment, while Gotion High-Tech Co. didn’t reply to an email.
Both firms are battery-makers with investments in Yichun.
Several other mining companies in the area declined to comment when reached by phone.
Mining in Yichun was largely brought to a halt last week as officials from several ministries arrived from Beijing to investigate the sector following reports of unlicensed mining and environmental infringements,
Yicai newspaper reported on Sunday.
About a fifth of China’s lithium output was derived from lepidolite in 2021, according to an academic study published by the journal China Geology.
Yichun’s lepidolite rocks contain less than 1% lithium, according to the study.
That’s a low level that typically makes extraction more energy-intensive and expensive.
“I believe the Chinese government certainly has an interest in keeping things running smoothly, and I’m not sure that artisanal operators help there,” Perks said.
“Large companies will continue to develop their projects in the region.”
Lithium price slide deepens as China battery giant bets on cheaper inputs
Rare discounts offered by Chinese battery giant CATL to automakers have accelerated a plunge in lithium prices, and the market is set to drop a further 25% with supply growth outpacing demand, analysts and traders say.
After a frenzied rush by electric vehicle makers to secure raw materials over the past two years, which drove prices for lithium carbonate up more than six-fold and spodumene up nearly ten-fold, the bubble has burst.
“Supply is coming on stream faster than you can say ‘boo’,” said analyst Dylan Kelly of Ord Minnett in Sydney.
“Demand remains strong but prices have been unsustainable for some time now.”
The turning point for lithium prices came late last year as electric vehicle demand in China slowed sharply ahead of Beijing’s planned halt to subsidies for the $87 billion industry, the world’s biggest and fastest growing.
The slide steepened, analysts say, as investors were spooked by a drop in China’s January electric vehicles sales and by CATL’s discount terms, which included an assumption that prices of lithium carbonate, a key component in auto batteries, would more than halve.
But even as demand worries have rocked markets, it is the looming supply from China, Australia and Chile that will bring prices back down to earth, analysts say.
www.mining.com/web/lithium-price-slide-deepens-as-china-battery-giant-bets-on-cheaper-inputs/
"We must fight against economic and financial colonization" (Jules Alingete)
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Since the accession to the supreme office of Félix Tshisekedi, the General Inspectorate of Finance has been strengthened in capacity and means in order to track down the perpetrators of economic crimes in the DRC.
In line with the vision of the Head of State, Félix Tshisekedi to put an end to embezzlement and corruption in the DRC, Jules Alingete refuses to back down on this.
Indeed, he believes that the same energy that will have enabled the DRC to free itself from the colonial yoke should motivate the Congolese to "fight against the financial colonization imposed by internal and external predators in order to bequeath to our children a country where it will be a good life, ”wrote the financial policeman on his Twitter account.
State coffers have been bleeding for many years because of the financial and economic predation committed by Congolese political actors.
mediacongo
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