An Ill-advised Move
South Korea is selling mines without prudence, while the importance of the electric vehicle battery industry is continuing to increase and China is strengthening its mineral supply chains.
The Korea Resources Corp. is planning to sell its 33 percent stake at the Ambatovy nickel mine in Madagascar. The mine is one of the three largest nickel mines in the world and its reserves amount to 146.2 million tons.
The corporation is also planning to sell its stake at the Boleo copper mine in Mexico, the Cobre Panama copper mine in Panama, and the Wyong bituminous coal mine in Australia. It sold its stake at the Marcona copper mine in Peru in 2016, the Moolarben bituminous coal mine in Australia in 2018, the Rosemont copper mine in the United States in 2019, and the Santo Domingo copper mine in Chile in 2021.
At present, LG Energy Solution, SK On and Samsung SDI are producing high-nickel batteries with a nickel content of approximately 90 percent. With the global nickel demand soaring, the current price per ton is over US$20,000, up 50 percent or so from a year ago. Iljin Materials, SK Nexilis and Solus Advanced Materials produce copper foils with copper. Its price per ton more than doubled in one year to reach US$9,582 on Dec. 24.
In the meantime, China has bought a number of mines in Latin America, Africa, and so on in order to facilitate battery material procurement. On Dec. 22, Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt announced that it would acquire Prospect Lithium Zimbabwe for US$420 million.
The three South Korean companies’ dependence on minerals imported from China is currently 80 percent or so, more than 90 percent in the case of certain minerals. In other words, they are extremely vulnerable to China’s export restrictions. According to experts, the restrictions are already taking shape with China raising the prices of lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese, etc.
Although the companies are trying to procure more from, for example, Chile, Australia and Argentina, the South Korean government is moving in the opposite direction unlike the Chinese government. “The South Korean government is reducing its overseas resources development projects for political reasons related to the previous administration, and this is an absolutely wrong approach,” said an industry source.