As per the latest news available, and according to a Reuters source, China's Ganfeng Lithium Co. Ltd. and its unit GFL International Co Ltd have signed a contract to supply battery-grade lithium products to Tesla. Ganfeng, the world's top lithium company by market capitalization, has already supplied battery-grade lithium to EV producers including Tesla.
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Ganfeng Lithium Group covers a wide swath of the lithium battery supply chain, from lithium resource development, refining and processing, to battery manufacturing and battery recycling. The Company’s products are widely used in electric vehicles, energy storage, 3C products, chemicals and pharmaceuticals.
The group's lithium resources are located across the globe and it is the only company in the lithium industry that has the commercial scale technologies to extract lithium from brine, ore and recycled materials. The group´s lithium compound capacity ranks third worldwide and first in China, and is the world´s largest lithium metal producer. The group has complete battery manufacturing and recycling technology, providing sustainable value-added solutions to battery manufacturers and electric vehicle manufacturers.
Ganfeng Lithium was established way back in the year 2000. Their activities in the past 3 years include the following: in 2019 they invested in the equity of Bacanora Lithium PLC, and acquired a 22.5% project interest in Sonora Lithium, a lithium clay project based in Sonora, Mexico; they also signed a strategic cooperation memorandum with Volkswagen Group to supply lithium chemical products to VW and its suppliers over next decade; signed a long term supply agreement with BMW, and started automatic mass production of TWS earphone batteries.
In 2018 they listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (01772), becoming the first Chinese lithium company to be dual-listed. They signed a supply contract with LG Chemical to supply chemical products for LG Chemical and signed a strategic cooperation agreement with BMW Germany to supply lithium chemical products for its designated battery or cathode material suppliers. Before that, they signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Tesla, and its battery suppliers for battery grade lithium hydroxide products from Ganfeng; and also formed a Joint-Venture with Lithium Americas to develop the Minera Exar lithium brine project in Argentina.
In 2017 they started an investment in Pilbara Minerals, another investment in Lithium Americas, and started construction of the first generation of solid state lithium battery R&D pilot production line. They also expanded the capacity of lithium hydroxide, lithium carbonate and power battery production lines.
The new contract with Tesla will allow the company and its unit to provide products for three years starting from 2022, Ganfeng said today (Monday, November 1st) in a filing to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. The sales amount and value of the contract are still pending Tesla's purchase orders, according to the filing. Ganfeng has posted stellar earnings this year, with its third-quarter and nine-month net profits up 507% and 648% on an annual basis, respectively, thanks to rising lithium prices and robust demand. The Jiangxi-based firm also announced an 8.4 billion yuan ($1.31 billion) investment in two battery production projects in August.
Ganfeng has a global distribution of resources, holding high-quality mineral resources in Australia, Argentina, Mexico and in China. The Company has developed an industry leading lithium chemical and lithium battery research platform covering tens of thousands of square meters of laboratories.
The Company´s facilities include: an inorganic lithium compound research laboratory; an organic lithium synthesis research laboratory; a lithium battery materials research laboratory; a metal lithium smelting research laboratory; a lithium series alloy research laboratory; a power and energy storage battery research laboratory; a lithium battery recycling research laboratory, equipped with more than 1,600 sets of R&D and analysis equipment such as glove box, scanning electron+ microscope (SEM), X-ray diffractometer (XRD), gas mass spectrometry (GC-MS), etc., providing a solid backing for technological innovation.
Ganfeng was approved to establish the National Enterprise Technology Center, the National and Local Joint Engineering Research Center, the Jiangxi Province Key Industry Innovation Platform, the Jiangxi Province Lithium Battery New Material Engineering Technology Research Center, the Jiangxi Province Key Laboratory, and the Jiangxi Province Industrial Design Center. The Company is focused on continuous improvement of its technology and products through rigorous scientific and technological research and development.
The Company has established the Ganfeng Business School to encourage the "teaching of masters and apprentices" and open up the three channels of title, rank and management to provide a platform for growth and development of various talents. Will we see some kind of exchange program or academic cooperation with Tesla´s future Institute of Technology and Science in Texas? What do you think? Please let us know in the comments below.
Nico Caballero is the VP of Finance of Cogency Power, specializing in solar energy. He also holds a Diploma in Electric Cars from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, and enjoys doing research about Tesla and EV batteries. He can be reached at @NicoTorqueNews on Twitter. Nico covers Tesla and electric vehicle latest happenings at Torque News.
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