BTR announced on September 21 that it will partner with Heilongjiang Communications Investment Group to set up 600,000 tons per year of integrated production capacity for flake graphite and natural graphite anode materials. This project will be developed in three phases. The first phase, which will entail an estimated investment of RMB 1.816 billion, will set up 200,000 tons per per year for flake graphite anode materials and 50,000 tons per year for natural graphite anode materials. Integrated production capacity encompasses spheroidization, refining, and manufacturing of finished product. The first phase is expected to take 18 months to complete. As a whole, the project will have 400,000 tons per year for flake graphite anode materials and 200,000 tons per year for natural graphite materials.
The scale of the second phase will be the same as that of the first phase. As for the third phase, it will set up 100,000 tons per year natural graphite anode materials. The initiation dates and development schedules of the second phase and the third phase will depend on the future market situation and the availability of the local graphite supply.
Huarun Mining, a sub-subsidiary of Heilongjiang Communications, possesses graphite mining rights in Luobei County, which is a part of Heilongjiang Province in China’s northwestern region. Following the formation of the partnership with BTR, Huarung Mining will be renamed as Ruitong New Material Technology (Heilongjiang) and handle the implementation of the joint project. Also, the shareholding structure of Ruitong will be modified to allow BTR to control a 60% stake. The remaining 40% will be controlled by a subsidiary of Heilongjiang Communications.
BTR said the joint project will be the start of a long-term relationship. Together, BTR and Heilongjiang Communications will consolidate resources across the upstream and downstream parts of the supply chain for Li-ion batteries. In the short term, they will focus on graphite mining in Heilongjiang and the processing of flake and natural graphite materials. In the long term, they will secure other supply sources for battery-related minerals and jointly develop advanced processing technologies. All in all, the partnership will be mutually beneficial and enable a higher quality of development.
BTR’s core businesses encompass the development, manufacturing, and sales of anode materials used in Li-ion batteries. The company’s production capacity for anode materials now totals around 363,000 tons per year, of which flake graphite anode materials account for 100,000 tons per year. The company also has 43,000 tons per year of production capacity for high-nickel cathode materials. In terms of financial performance, BTR’s revenue for the first half of 2022 came to RMB 6.359 billion, showing a huge year-on-year growth rate of 165.74%. It is worth noting that the company also sold more than 12,000 tons of cathode materials in the same period. The resulting revenue came to RMB 3.533 billion, up by 122.64% year on year.
This article is a translation of a Chinese article posted by TrendForce. It contains information that is either sourced from other news outlets or accessible in the public domain. Some Chinese names are transcribed into English using Hanyu Pinyin.