September 28, 2018, the grand ground-breaking ceremony of Ningde New Energy Material Industrial Park, established through co-investment and cooperation of Tsingshan Iron & Steel Group and GEM, was held in Fu’an City, Ningde, Fujian Province. It was attended by leaders from the Municipal Party Committee, Municipal People’s Congress, Municipal Government, Municipal Political Consultative Conference and departments directly under the Municipality of Ningde, leaders from the Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government of Fu’an, Board Chairman Xiang Guangda of Tsingshan Iron & Steel, and Board Chairman Xu Kaihua of GEM Co., Ltd., and participated by five global major battery factories including Samsung SDI, CATL, Panasonic, LGC and BYD, and over 200 upstream and downstream enterprises of battery raw material and material industry including Glencore and Trafigura.

GEM has already announced on September 20 that it will join hands with Yong Qing Technology to build Ningde New Energy Material Industrial Park in Ningde, create a world-class ternary raw material and material manufacturing system, with 1.85 billion yuan of initial investment, and produce 50,000 tons of ternary precursor and 20,000 tons of ternary cathode material. On the same day of the ground-breaking ceremony, the Joint Venture Agreement on Construction of Indonesian Lateritic Nickel Ore for Production of Battery-grade Nickel Chemical Product (Nickel Sulfate Crystal) (50,000 Tons of Nickel/Year) was signed by Tsingshan Industries, GEM, Brunp Recycling (controlled by CATL), Bintang Delapan Group (Indonesia), and Hanwa Co., Ltd. (Japan) in the Tsingshan Park of Ningde.

 “Turn lateritic nickel ore into ternary material to produce battery.” A world-shocking new energy materials whole industry chain of nickel resources is born, which is bound to have far-reaching effects on the world’s supply pattern of new energy materials.

This is a feast of cooperation between global giants of the nickel industry. It has stirred up turbulent waves in the field of the world’s nickel resources that has been silent for the past 5 years, provided industry insiders with infinite space for imagination, and declared the new hope for transformation and development of the world’s nickel resource industry.

One city and one type of resource are creating a legend of an industry!

With the passage of time, the wheel of history is advancing towards electrification and intellectualization. Ningde of China is the pioneer of this trend. Amid the vastness of sea, it is rapidly and irresistibly becoming a city of focus of the world’s new energy industry.

Nickel resources, a new kinetic energy of the new era, is rapidly changing the travel mode of the mankind!

Nickel, an ancient chemical element throughout history, has made its debut as a star, and risen as a key element of ternary power new energy. NCM811, and NCA, the ternary cathode new materials with the proportion of nickel exceeding 80%, providing surging power for new energy vehicle at a low cost, is advancing overwhelmingly!

According to the public announcement of GEM: the booming new energy vehicle industry is becoming the main force leading the world’s green development. Within the future 20 years, ternary power battery will become the mainstream power of new energy vehicle. High nickel ternary material, the core material of ternary power battery that accounts for over 40% of the cost of battery, has broad market prospects. With the global commercialization of the use of new energy vehicle, the demand of high nickel ternary material for first-grade nickel resources will explode; by 2020 there will be a global supply shortage of first-grade nickel resources. The strategic security of nickel resources has become an industry-wide issue of common concern.

According to measurement, with the commercialization of new energy vehicle, by 2025 the supply of first-grade nickel resources will be even shorter by above 500,000 tons globally. As a major user of nickel resources, China’s reserve of nickel resources only accounts for about 3.0% of the world’s nickel resources. Indonesia is one of the countries with the richest lateritic nickel ore resources in the world, but accounts for over 10% of the global reserve of lateritic nickel ore resources, its main resources concentrated in Sulawesi Island and the islands nearby.

GEM reported: its ternary power material business sector is growing rapidly (year-on-year growth 98.7%, accounting for 57.54% of gross operating income); it has established a production capacity of 60,000 tons of ternary precursor and material at its base in Jingmen, Hubei. In 2017, its shipments of ternary precursor dominated the Chinese market, mainly to supply CATL and Sumsung supply chain. According to the information publicized by GEM, by 2020 it will form a total production capacity of above 100,000 tons, with its demand for nickel resources being over 50,000 tons.

Mr. Xu Kaihua, Board Chairman of GEM, expressed at the ground-breaking ceremony on September 28: the era of low-cost high nickel battery has come for automotive power, the global new energy industry is being shuffled drastically, and the result of competition is—the owner of nickel resources will have the dominant power of discourse. This Ningde New Energy Material Industrial Park created jointly by the Municipal Government of Ningde and Tsingshan Industries is a strategic cooperation of the global nickel resource industry, and a perfect combination of the advantages of upper-end nickel resource, middle-end material manufacturing and downstream power battery market, which will establish a manufacturing system of new energy materials whole industry chain of nickel resources from the raw materials of ternary power battery to the manufacturing of ternary materials, and play a powerful role in improving industry chain competitiveness. This project will focus on the development of NCA high nickel, NCM523 monocrystal, NCM622 and NCM811 high nickel series precursor, and NCM622/811 high nickel ternary cathode material, become a global manufacturing base of ternary precursor and cathode material of complete system and excellent quality, and satisfy the global market demand of new energy development for low-cost high-quality ternary materials. The initial stage of this project has a full production capacity of 70,000 tons of ternary precursor material and cathode material, and over 10 billion of output value. With “green + ecology + intelligence” as the goal, this project initiates 360° green and intelligent design, and carries out the six main green themes of green building, clean production, cyclic utilization, energy conservation & emission reduction, green culture, and green industry. With the implementation of “intelligent manufacturing + Internet”, which interconnects logistics, equipment, manufacturing and management operation, it becomes a green intelligent park and green industry demonstration base with complete integration of production, ecology, and life.

A wise man always creates infinite opportunities with the courage to be the first.

Circumstances create heroes. The combination of resource, technology and market is bound to produce radical chemical change.

According to the announcement, Tsingshan Industries is a leading enterprise of the world’s stainless steel product industry, an outstanding representative of China’s domestic enterprises, and creator of the legend of technological innovation and industrial development from low-grade lateritic nickel ore to high-grade stainless steel product whole industry chain. “Product hundred-years stainless steel; build green future” is the industry concept of Tsingshan Industries. Through the expansion of territory, Tsingshan Industries has become the first to own multiple mines of rich nickel resources in Indonesia, with over 1 billion tons of crude ore reserves and over 12 million tons of nickel metal reserves, and established the world’s greatest ferro-nickel smelting capacity, which wields significant influence on the global market of nickel resources. Based on public information, in 2017 Tsingshan Industries realized over 160 billion yuan of sales, ranking the 23rd among the top 500 Chinese private enterprise. The total investment in its CIETCZ Tsingshan Park has reached 5 billion US dollars, which has become the world’s largest whole industry chain production base producing stainless steel directly from lateritic nickel ore, with an annual output of 3 million tons of stainless steel hot-rolled coils. In addition to perfect infrastructure including pier (annual handling capacity of 30 million tons), power (2 million KW), and road traffic, the park also has perfect living facilities including staff dormitory for Chinese employees, training center, mosque, and hotel. With over 30,000 employees, and above 6 billion US dollars of annual output value, the CIETCZ Tsingshan Park has become an outstanding representative of the synergy between Indonesia’s “Global Maritime Axis” strategy and China’s “One Belt One Road” initiative, and an excellent enterprise of China’s “One Belt One Road” development.

GEM is a SSE-listed enterprise with the stock code 002340, and a leading enterprise of China’s circular economy. According to public information, in 2017 GEM realized over 10.7 billion yuan of sales, ranking the 7th among China’s listed environmental protection enterprises. “Limited resources and unlimited circulation” is the industry concept of GEM. For 15 years, starting from the recycling of things as small as batteries to the recycling and treatment of electronic waste, recycling and treatment of scrap car, and cascade utilization of power battery pack, GEM has persisted in extracting nickel, cobalt, and manganese from waste one by one, to compose an industry legend of turning waste into wealth with circulation technology. With 16 circulation industrial bases throughout the world, GEM has become a world-leading enterprise in recycling and treatment of electronic waste, scrap car, and waste battery. The GEM people who used to be persistent in “subtracting”, upon the advent of the new energy era, has quickly converted to “adding”, to get nickel, cobalt, and manganese together with innovative technology, magically transform itself into one of the major ternary precursor material manufacturing enterprises of the world, and open the great channel of tera-scale market from waste recycling to new energy material. On January 22, 2018, the company won the Circular Economy Award for Multinational at the World Economic Forum in Davos, establishing its elevated status globally in the field of waste recycling.

Controlled by CATL, Brunp Recycling is a high and new technology enterprise devoted to recycling treatment of waste battery and production of high-end battery material, as well as one of China’s earliest and leading enterprises engaged in the manufacturing ternary power battery material, with over ten years of technical development and industry experience in ternary material manufacturing.

Established on April 1, 1947, Hanwa Co., Ltd. is a TSE-listed enterprise. As one of the largest Japanese companies, with its corporate business covering a wide variety of fields including iron and steel, metal raw material, non-ferrous metal, food, fuel, chemical product, wood, and machinery, the company provides high-quality products and services for a wide range of customers of various trades and professions. Especially in the fields of electronic device and electro-mobile raw material, Hanwa sells raw materials including nickel and cobalt to all parts of the world all the year round. Besides, it has its own lithium resources in Mexico. Hanwa Co., Ltd. continues to advance to become the industry leader.

As the pass is impregnable and the journey long, nickel is the key to green energy resources.

A world-class new energy material industry chain with impact on the global new energy industry has officially set sail!

Picture 1: the Signing Ceremony of Joint Venture Agreement on Construction of Indonesian Lateritic Nickel Ore for Production of Battery-grade Nickel Chemical Product (Nickel Sulfate Crystal) (50,000 Tons of Nickel/Year) by GEM, Tsingshan Industries, Brunp Recycling, IMIP, and Hanwa Co., Ltd.

 

Picture 2: Ground-breaking Ceremony of Ningde New Energy Material Industrial Park

 

Picture 3: Ground-breaking Ceremony of Ningde New Energy Material Industrial Park