Chinese lithium-ion battery anode material manufacturer Shijiazhuang Shangtai plans to build a production plant in Kedah, Malaysia.
The Shenzhen Exchange-listed company on 13 October approved the set-up of a wholly-owned subsidiary Shangtai Technology Malaysia. It will invest $154mn to develop the Kedah-based plant, with a designed capacity of 50,000 t/yr for battery anode materials.
Site construction is expected to be finished in 24 months, but more details such as when the construction will start were undisclosed.
Shangtai sold 83,800t of anode materials in the first six months of 2024, up by 61pc from 52,200t a year earlier. It is also building an 100,000 t/yr anode material production plant in Wuji county in Shijiazhuang city in north China's Hebei province. The plant is expected to be completed in 2026.
The firm currently has a 200,000 t/yr anode material production complex in Xiyang county in Jinzhong city in north China's Shanxi province.
More and more Chinese companies have accelerated their overseas expansions in recent years to cope with rising geopolitical restrictions from western countries, particularly the US' Inflation Reduction Act and EU's Critical Raw Material Act. The country's major battery material producer BTR launched the first phase of its first overseas anode material plant in Indonesia with 80,000 t/yr of capacity on 7 August. It started to build a cathode material plant in Tangier in north Morocco on 8 April with a designed capacity of 50,000 t/yr, and is on track to build a 60,000 t/yr anode material plant also in Tangier.
