CATL puts upward pressure as mining trumps refining concerns

China’s electric vehicle (EV) battery giant CATL has warned that mining, not refining, is now the industry’s real bottleneck, marking a shift in emphasis after years of processing-focused supply chain concerns. In an interview with Bloomberg, Vice President Jiang Li argued that extraction, not mineral processing, which China currently dominates, poses the greater long-term constraint on widespread EV adoption. “The bottleneck is not in processing, but in mining,” Li said. He also stated that CATL wants to gain its cost advantage from production-oriented capacities rather than refining capacity, which China has controlled for a long time. The comments contradict past warnings from customers, including Ford, which said processing capacity was the industry’s most pressing constraint. Ford is among CATL’s larger Western customers, albeit in a relatively unusual way; To get around the tariffs, it licensed the battery maker’s technology for use in its own U.S. facilities. CATL now plans to establish a new mining unit to bridge the gap between mining and refining capacity and has appointed Chen Jinghe, founder of Zijin, one of China’s largest metals miners, as an advisor for this purpose. The current mining portfolio includes domestic and international projects in lithium, phosphate and cobalt; This is part of an effort to reduce dependence on non-Chinese companies processing imported ore, despite the country’s dominance in production. The sense of urgency is perhaps most readily apparent when considering the prolonged outages at CATL’s Jianxiawo lithium mine in Jiangxi province. The mine, one of the world’s largest lepidolite deposits, resumed production on June 29 after a permit dispute led to an almost year-long closure. The mine, which accounted for 8% to 10% of China’s lithium carbonate production before the suspension, had contributed to sharp fluctuations in lithium prices. Chinese lithium carbonate futures closed 8.36% higher at CN¥163,360 (US$24,000) per tonne on news of the resumption. With an annual lithium carbonate capacity of around 100,000 tonnes, the mine is expected to add more than 45,000 tonnes of additional supply in the second half of 2026, according to Mysteel analyst Li Pan. It predicts prices will range from CN¥150,000 to CN¥200,000 per tonne during the same period. It goes without saying that the price of lithium has a significant impact on battery production costs; Lithium typically accounts for 2 to 12% of the total battery weight, depending on the chemistry. CATL held 40.1% of the global battery market and roughly half in China between January and April 2026, according to SNE Research. Therefore, its own security of supply is deeply linked to the security of supply of the broader EV industry. Alongside its mining efforts, CATL is developing sodium-ion battery technology as a hedge against volatility in lithium prices, using a globally abundant material that eliminates geographic concentration of lithium reserves. “If the price of lithium increases, we can make more sodium-ion batteries,” Li said, framing the chemistry as a relief valve rather than a wholesale replacement. In May, CATL invested an additional CN¥5 billion to create 40 GWh of new sodium-ion battery production capacity in Fujian province, bringing the plant’s total planned capacity to 149 GWh. The strategy points to a company trying to control both ends of the supply chain simultaneously, locking up lithium, cobalt and phosphate assets upstream and turning to sodium chemistry to blunt the impact when lithium supplies dwindle. Li’s message, at its core, is that CATL’s scale as a battery maker doesn’t mean much unless it can vertically integrate the raw materials on which that scale depends.

Information: This content was prepared and published using AutomobileMagazine’s artificial intelligence-supported publishing system, in line with the information shared by international automotive manufacturers and reliable press sources.