The acquisition will enable Ganfeng to gain its first salt lake asset in China

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Ganfeng also holds interests in Australia, Mexico and Ireland.(Credit: Adam Radosavljevic from Pixabay)

Ganfeng Lithium has announced that it will acquire a 49% stake in China Minmetals-operated Yiliping lithium salt lake project for $225m.

The acquisition will enable Ganfeng to gain its first salt lake asset in China. The salt lake project is located in Qaidam Basin in the province of Qinghai on the Tibetan Plateau.

For the stake acquisition in the project, Ganfeng and subsidiary Qinghai Liangcheng Mining will buy investment fund Yili Hongda.

Yili Hongda, which is majority-owned by Citic Securities, owns a 49% stake in Minmetals’ salt lake project.

Minmetals will retain the mining rights for the Yiliping project, which will use the salt lake’s brines to make battery chemical lithium carbonate.

The completion of the transaction is subject to regulatory approvals.

Ganfeng was quoted by Reuters as saying that the acquisition “is conducive to the company’s business development, improves its core competitiveness and conforms to (its) upstream and downstream integration.”

Currently, the company has only one spodumene mining project in China. The project is located in its home province of Jiangxi.

Ganfeng also holds interests in Australia, Mexico and Ireland.

In February, Ganfeng signed a new joint venture agreement with Bacanora Lithium for the Sonora lithium project in Mexico.

The agreement was signed after Ganfeng exercised its option to increase its stake to 50% in Sonora Lithium (SLL), the holding company of the lithium project.

Bacanora Lithium, a UK-based lithium development and exploration company, will continue to be the operator of the lithium project.

The engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) activities related to the Mexican project will be handled by Ganfeng.