SANTIAGO: Chinese automaker BYD and metals group Tsingshan are backing out of multi-million dollar plans to build lithium cathode plants in Chile, the country\u2019s economic development agency said on Wednesday.
\nThe retreat by the two huge Chinese companies is a blow to Chile\u2019s aim to develop more domestic processing of lithium, a key metal for electric vehicle batteries. Chile is the world\u2019s no. 2 lithium producer.
\nBoth projects were hit by plunging lithium prices, said government economic development agency Corfo, which in 2023 had tapped BYD and Tsingshan for a preferential lithium price deal as part of its efforts to spur investment in Chile.
\n\u201cThe companies selected by Corfo have been affected in their investment decisions by the global market conditions, which have shown a sharp drop in prices,\u201d Corfo said in a statement.
\nTsingshan told Reuters it has withdrawn plans for a $233 million project to produce 120,000 metric tons of lithium iron phosphate (LFP). Chile\u2019s national assets ministry told Reuters that BYD filed an intent to withdraw its plans in January.
\nBYD, the world\u2019s biggest maker of electric cars, declined to comment. BYD last year flagged delays to a planned $290 million plant, which was expected to produce 50,000 metric tons per year of LFP for cathodes.
\nChilean newspaper Diario Financiero first reported the scrapped investments.
\nChile\u2019s effort in 2018 to encourage lithium-related investments via a pricing deal also fell apart. Chilean chemical company Molymet, China\u2019s Sichuan Fulin Transportation Group Co. , and a joint venture between Korean firms Posco and Samsung for various reasons withdrew their plans.
\nTsingshan and BYD would have had access to preferential prices of lithium produced by Chilean miner SQM through 2030, a timeframe that Corfo said also may have influenced the withdrawal of the projects.
\nIn addition, Corfo said Tsingshan had wanted to assign the project development to a unit of the company that had not participated in the bidding process, which Corfo said was not possible.
\nCorfo last week opened a second bidding process for a similar scheme, this time to provide a purchasing deal with US lithium producer Albemarle through 2043 for companies that commit to lithium-related projects.
\nAlbemarle and the selected investors will be able to use an \u201calternative form\u201d to determine a price agreement, Corfo said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SANTIAGO: Chinese automaker BYD and metals group Tsingshan are backing out of multi-million dollar plans to build lithium cathode plants in Chile, the country\u2019s economic development agency said on Wednesday. The retreat by the two huge Chinese companies is a blow to Chile\u2019s aim to develop more domestic processing of lithium, a key metal for …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":80785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80771"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80786,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80771\/revisions\/80786"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}