. Yes they keep dragging it down looking for trolls.
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With all of AVZ’s woes coming to a head in 2022 in a business environment that is inclined to what we call ‘corruption’, it is reassuring CATH engaged AVZ for the TIA and did not abandon. HuaYou also did not sell its shares. Nor Bin Guo’s Lithium plus to my knowledge. Zijin’s proxy did.
Of course many of us are wary of Chinese involvement including management. When I met Nigel in 2019 at the Sydney RIU conference, he was very keen to head ‘West’. Some of us may recall the Swiss engagement and German as well. Even the GHG report signalled a lot, not least company statements on strategic locations.
But the reality was and is the Chinese partners have a well oiled machine to succeed in DRC. We know that.
This brings me to the point of this post which is not so clear to western audiences.
“
the Ningde era occupies the leading market and directly drives upstream lithium power materials and equipment enterprises closer to the Ningde era”
I want to draw your attention to lower case “
the” in “the Ningde Era”. 宁德-时代, suggesting that this is CATL’s time, it’s dominion.
This is how the Chinese often use the word ‘Era’ 时代 ‘Shídài’. It is almost dynastic in connotation. In fact we probably have all intuited this fact but we just see it as marketing. But for the CCP and CATL, it really is the Shídài of CATL reflecting the Shidai of China in the world. It is a gigantic hiving entity that draws all the ‘nutrients’ supply chains in and around itself. When the domestic supply chain entities consider an IPO listing it is as a CATL supply chain entity.
Therefore for AVZ, CATH is a client of CATL. And, yes you guessed it, AVZ is an irritant regards to integration into it’s
shidai.
Recall that CATL IPO listing commenced at a time the market was still heating up for lithium but in same month offical EV subsidy plans started to be leaked disconnecting lower range vehicles and lower energy density Li battery companies from the ‘boob’ hence a domino effect on supply and demand. (AVZ’s 37cps happened in January), but by June when CATL listed the market was in decline. (We know what Eckhof did signalling that, and despite we were (and are) waiting on BNB’s IPO plans to emerge + more.). Result is CATL worked to pick up cheap pickings including as you know Yibin looking to get a board seat on the cheap. 4.5cps was humiliating. Thanks to the Australian Government they didn’t get a board seat. If they did however, what would that do for the current politics on AVZ shoring up it’s mandate over Manono’s key real estate?
CATL probably doesn’t care. It is developing sodium batteries to take the heat out of the lithium battery market. By the time Manono is in production the prices could be lower. But they may still be higher than anything AVZ’s DFS imagined.
As we often rehearse in our mind when we think about jurisdiction risk, it is occasionally noted the Congolese know what depending on one external state does for its sovereignty.
The ‘SHIDAI hiving Ningde’ needs careful resisting Perhaps AVZ finding another partner besides CATH wiii pave the way to make the Chinese more respectful?
The USA really needs to see its client states and partners as ‘Americans’ too. The US needs to embrace AVZ more as one of its own just as it does with the 5 eyes.
A little more on the direction I see, is that China has embarked on the “ideological man” phase, ‘Marxist-Leninism’, with Xi Jingping its emblem of sanctity and authority to-be-on/par with Mao Zedong.
L
