What you need to know about Chinese battery giant Huayou purchase of Arcadia Lithium in Zimbabwe

Why not just set up battery factory in Zimbabwe?

South American companies Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Chile produce the most lithium, but battery manufacturers have not set up factories there. All these countries have discovered that convincing producers, most of them Chinese, to shift from Asia is not easy. These countries are now focused instead on exporting concentrates.

Firstly, while they are called lithium batteries, the batteries also comprise other components. These include cobalt, nickel and copper. A manufacturer would also have to import cells and other components from China.

Secondly, battery makers told South American lithium countries that they want to produce batteries near the markets. Producing batteries in South America, or now in Zimbabwe, and having to ship them to Asia would make them more expensive.

Lithium battery dreams get a rude awakening in South America

Manufacturers also want more lithium than a single market can provide. In Chile, manufacturer POSCO needed 14 231 tonnes of lithium hydroxide, increasingly preferred for making EV battery cathodes. Chile, which has some of the world’s biggest resources, could not match that demand enough for POSCO to set up there.

An EV battery factory in Zimbabwe is equally unlikely.

At a 2018 mining conference, Wilfried Pabst, chair of Southern African Metals & Minerals, majority owner of lithium developer Bikita Minerals, burst the bubble of executives and government officials who were expecting battery factories in Zimbabwe. Lithium accounts for just 7% of some EV batteries, he told them.

“Let’s get real. It’s not going to happen,” he said.- NewZWire

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