Image Source : China Visual

BEIJING, October 5  (TMTPOST) — China’s leading electric-vehicle batteries maker CATL’s wholly-owned subsidiary Sichuan Times New Energy Technology Co. (Sichuan Times) signed the "Investment Framework Agreement" with Luoyang Guohong Investment Holding Group Co., Ltd. (Guohong Group), CATL and Luoyang-based CMOC Group Limited (CMOC) announced last Friday.

Guohong Group intends to increase its stake in Sichuan Times with its 100% equity interest in Luoyang Mining Group Co., Ltd. ( Luoyang Mining). After the completion of the transaction, Luoyang Mining will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sichuan Times, which will indirectly hold 24.68% of CMOC through Luoyang Mining, becoming the second largest indirect shareholder of CMOC.

Regarding the cooperation between the two giants, CATL said in the announcement that the transaction will help CATL's business development, deepen its cooperation with CMOC, and enable it to build a resilient global supply chain system by leveraging their respective advantages. 

This is not the first deep cooperation between a global power battery giant and a domestic mining giant. In April 2021, CMOC announced that it had forged a comprehensive strategic partnership with CATL on new energy-related metals. CATL had taken a stake in CMOC's KFM copper-cobalt mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) through its subsidiary Brunp. The KFM copper-cobalt mine is one of the world's largest and highest-grade copper-cobalt mining projects to be developed. It is reported that the mine is currently under intensive construction and expected to commence operation in the first half of 2023, becoming the world's largest single cobalt mine.

As a global mining company with multiple minerals such as copper, cobalt, molybdenum, tungsten, niobium, phosphorus, and nickel, CMOC has focused on new energy-related metals in recent years, carried out the Indonesia Huayue nickel-cobalt project, and is accelerating the development of two copper-cobalt mines -- TFM and KFM, which will multiply its copper-cobalt production capacity in the future. With CATL’s dominant position in the whole battery industry chain, the cooperation will enable CMOC to expand its product portfolio.