Lithium auctions in China drive the world crazy

Lithium auctions in China seem to fascinate the world, large numbers of bids are submitted, and companies end up spending more than a thousand times the opening price.
China is the largest producer of electric cars, and lithium is a key element in the batteries that power them. But the country has only a small part of the identified reserves in the world, which means that it has to import more than half of what it needs.

The government in the southern province of “Yunnan” put forward exploration rights for 5 years for two projects in the cities of Kunming and Yuchi, in a determination from Beijing to accelerate the local development of one of the most important resources for the global transition away from fossil fuels.

The auctions will be closely watched after heated competition drove up the prices of two mines in neighboring Sichuan in August. A unit of the Inner Mongolia dachong mining company won the rights to the parkam mine in the province after an offer of 4.2 billion yuan (580 million dollars), which is more than 1,300 times the initial bid price. The auction attracted more than 11 thousand offers.

The second mine in Jinchuan province made one billion yuan, as a subsidiary of Sichuan Energy Industry Investment Group paid almost 1800 times the opening price