The deep green mountains, the stepped rice fields, the small traditional villages around. There was no indication upon arrival in Yichun, a seemingly modest town in the middle of rural China, that it had become a node in the global economy. The notched hillsides barely bear witness to the region’s mining activity. You have to go to the economic and technological development zone of this city in the province of Jiangxi nicknamed “lithium capital” to appreciate the advance taken by the country in minerals that have become strategic.
There, in dozens, there are factories of groups with names unknown to the general public: Ganfeng, Gotion, Huilong, Tianci, CLOU, and the world number one in batteries, CATL. These are refineries which transform the rocks from which lithium comes into raw product, and, as the industry is increasingly integrated, production chains which produce batteries.
Each factory gate testifies to the limitless ambitions of Chinese industry. “The world leader in batteries”we read in front of CATL. “Making clean energy accessible”, displays NAIL. There used to be hills here too, but everything was leveled to make way for the area. There is room for other projects, but the fall in lithium prices, after their dizzying rise, has somewhat rationalized these prospects.
“Deals” around the world
China already has more than 60% of lithium refining capacity. Part of it is sourced in China, from mines located a few dozen kilometers away in the countryside of Jiangxi, or in more remote regions in the mountains of Sichuan or the salt lakes of Qinghai.
But the bulk comes from abroad. As the transition to electric vehicles and other battery-powered products accelerates across the planet, local companies have gone to sign “deals” around the world. The Ganfeng group, for example, which has its largest processing plant in Yichun and its headquarters about sixty kilometers to the east, has increased its acquisitions of mining rights, from Argentina to Australia. passing through Mali.
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After transforming this lithium from raw rocks, it supplies it to giants like Tesla and BMW, who hastened to sign contracts with this group over several years. A competitor, Sinomine, has purchased mines in Canada and more recently in Zimbabwe, from where the material is shipped by boat to major Chinese ports in the provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang, south of Shanghai, before being refined. , especially here in Jiangxi.
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