The article apparently refers to CATL's currently building a lepidolite project in YiChun (6.44km2, 960Mt @ 0.27% Li2O). Chinese media also hyped the potential annual production from this mine, saying up to 200ktpa LCE for all three stages, but is more likely around 100ktpa LCE maxi. The production cost for this project is likely to be around CNY175,000/ton-200,000/ton LCE. That's why the price agency said, CATL needs to bring LCE price up to make their lepidolite project viable.
This lepidolite project is meant to be online now, but due to delay of building waste processing facility (permit approval delay etc), it's unlikely to commence production till June/July 2023 for the stage 1.
CATL also reported to acquire another hard rock project (18Mt @ 1.3% Li2O) for CNY6.4B (or $1.39B), paying ~$2,350 per LCE ton for the project.
You would find Chinese media still report CATL owns North America Lithium (In liquidation, then acquired by PLL/SYA), Neo Lithium (Acquired by Zijin), even Millennial Lithium (CATL bid, outbid by Ganfeng, LAC), and Manono (Not acquired yet).
The following article, clearly states CATL wanna bring lithium price down as they are the most beneficiary for low lithium price.
All imo.
CATL wins $135m lithium project in race for materialsMINING.COM Staff Writer | April 21, 2022 | 8:46 am
Battery China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL)
said on Thursday a subsidiary had won the rights to a lithium mine in the country’s southern Jiangxi province for 865 million yuan ($134.76 million).
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CATL will speed up the exploration and development of lithium mineral resources and increase the supply of lithium in a bid to bring the prices of lithium-related raw materials back to a reasonable level,” the company said in the statement.
(20min delay)