The view from China: Exclusive interview with Ganfeng Lithium

[@peterjohn5834]

My second review of this interview my assessment goes up from excellent. This CEO is superb. So open and honest, building a worldwide business. I am vey happy Pilbara has a good working relationship with Ganfen, a great business partner.

[@leozhao175]

Excellent interview! China's welcome of Telsa to help set up the Chinese EV market and supply is a good example. The US should do the same to welcome BYD to build in North America to build up supply instead of raising tariffs.

[@thisiskevin1000]

The closest would by Geely-owned Volvo, Lynk and Company, Polestar and Zeekr brands, and even Faraday Future and Leapmotors with the backing of Stellantis.

[@SigFigNewton]

@@thisiskevin1000agreed. I do not think that the US will get past its lobbyist driven sense that it must protect its old automakers. Living in the US, I see essentially zero discussion of the fact that allowing US consumers to purchase significantly cheaper cars would create jobs indirectly by giving people additional money to spend on other goods and services. It’s always talked about as though it would only mean job losses. No complexity allowed into the discussion

[@donkeykong516]

China readiness for competition is amazing. America plays protectionism games.

[@SigFigNewton]

While one has been reliant on importing fossil fuels and therefore has been subsidizing battery research, the other has been getting paid to export fossil fuels and therefore has been protecting the longevity their use.

[@SigFigNewton]

Different priorities. An alternative explanation which is really more of an additional explanation: long term strategies might be more associated with one government type than the other.

[@peterjohn5834]

Excellent interview on a range of issues. Thanks for the interview

[@patrickshanghai2064]

good stuff. mr. Wang makes a lot of sense.

[@RockStockChannel]

Great interview

[@valueinvestor8555]

What do you think about their 600K ton capacity target for 2030? What amount is realistic?

[@LunarGlow92]

Can you please get someone from china that has expertise in manufacturing at scale with automation. I gotta say i seen the xiaomi factory and it literally blew my mind. It was fascinating to watch. I would love to hear from some of those engineers and just hear how they think and what kind of planning, effort and what went into building something like that.

[@allangraham970]

Munroe live might be a good place to start

[@1dforbes]

Gangfeng used to be considered a fair player and a good jv partner. But not now after their collaboration with the Mali government to take the Goulamina from Leo Lithium

[@thisiskevin1000]

Diversification

[@sharonjames2041]

😢Interesting Conversation 🤔 ❤

[@daramy9507]

Quite an informative discussion. What some call overcapacity is actually market competition. Everyone is jumping into a lucrative market while others like BYD are aggressively building up an economy of scale in order to become more price competitive. Isn't that what we call capitalism? It is taken directly from the Western playbook.

[@friedhelmschroter8124]

"Isn't that what we call capitalism? It is taken directly from the Western playbook." Yes, that is what we call capitalism. Yet there is one key difference from the Western playbook and that is that Chinese companies/production can rely on workers/engineers that ask a fraction of what Western workers/engineers demand while Western countries competed on a roughly similar salary level. You may accept this key difference or you may ask China to increase the value of their currency or you may modify free trade to a "controlled free trade", controlled in the sense that excessive bancruptcies of western companies will be avoided while still allowing competition.

[@benlamprecht6414]

Thanks for yet another excellent video

[@lb9007]

Great questioning but is it only me that have the impression that the CEO wasn't offering much meat in his answers? Felt like he was limited in his scope of responses. Is he afraid of the CCP?

[@HTeo-og1lg]

Yea. But it's only you that is fearful of your shadow. Like the advertisement of Guinness Stout goes: "The evil mind is always fearful of a knock at the door of his home." 😂😂😂

[@friedhelmschroter8124]

Can you give some clear examples? For me he could have represented an US company not willing to open all its targets, because competition and also hostile Western politicians do listen too. And yes, as a Chinese company you should be quite careful when commenting on Chinese policy. The same does apply to less extent to American companies and as example you can take S&P which dared to downgrade US from AAA to AA according their free speech judgement and got fined on this by 1 billion USD, because US had no intention to stop living a nice life on debt.

[@allangraham970]

He is polite😂 watching KZbin generally it is rare to humility

[@trekpac2]

That is not a very useful comment.

[@SigFigNewton]

@@friedhelmschroter8124there was no such fine

[@allangraham970]

Interesting that he thought Tesla comming to China is what made their elec vehickes so competitive. Yet USA feels it cannot compete with China and the usa federal goverment treats Teska as the enem and the elec market in usa is seen by the usa media as faultering 😂

[@medielijah]

'interesting'.

[@blee7650]

A 100% import tariff spells the end of China supplying lithium related supplies into the US market. If China wants access to the world's #1 consuming market in the world, then they will need to play by the same rules. They will need to setup factories and employ US labour on US soil, just as how they demanded Western companies that wanted in on the China market, could only do so by having foreign companies to setup plants in China. The tables have turned around. Also SE Asian markets don't have the disposable income as the typical American, not many places around the world do hold the wealth as western nations do so when this CEO said how the IRA and US geopolitical problems would affect their lithium business, saying that poorer, less wealthy nations would take up the slack is a nothing burger. Ganfeng trades on the OTC which a share price high in Aug 2021 of $15 to a low today of $2.72. Can't trust the CCP

[@blee7650]

@@cariocaamigo542: yep and all those lithium stocks heading to 52 week lows. They've essentially missed valuable gains in the broad market. But that's a different issue. Boric has the ultimate power in Chile and since he took office, ALB has went on a downward trajectory from over $300 to $115. US lithium company or not, owning lithium stocks has been a very bad investment if you bought at the high. Why? Because the EV boom is over and countries around the world have rolled back Climate Change concerns. Demand for lithium fell off a cliff - end of story. SQM shareholders are getting screwed on the basis that Codelco will be taking over their operations after 2030. You know what happens when a gov't entity takes over? It reaps all the profits for themselves and leaves crumbs for the private shareholders. I can go on for about any lithium company. Joe Lowry was severely wrong trying to call the bottom on lithium prices.

[@derschrecklichesven8368]

I also think LCE prices can easily go as low as 80-90k. Problem rn is, that the opportunity costs for a lot of miners to shut down and later boot up production are higher than to run on low or negative margin for some time. Im not too well informed on this, but I think chinese miners want the price to be where it is. I wouldnt be suprised if they dont care about the price at all and are just told by CCP to supply lithium for cheap chinese batteries. With low price, competition for new lithium projects also stays low so they can further extend their market share in global lithium production. If you look at graphite, they are already at over 90%. IMO the only way to invest in lithium stocks rn, is to bet on american companies that can endure the low prices and would potentially profit from tariffs on chinese miners.

[@donkeykong516]

It’s not about politics or trust, it’s about economics, capitalism, & risk mitigation. If talk trust then you trust no one. Trust is a good way to get screwed.

[@friedhelmschroter8124]

Some people corrected your obviously wrong impression about Ganfeng strength in the supply of lithium. Here are some additional corrections on your somehow weird view: 1) The largest global consumer market is today China (US is only 2nd) 2) China does play by the capitalist rule of free market. The US is obviously not any more willing to play by these capitalist rules it pushed for over many decades! 3) Which global rule does need a company to set up production in US? I am not aware by such rule at all (yet some americans would like to have such rules because it is not any more sufficient/convient for them to live on making debt only). 4) Yes, Asian people do not have the disposable income of Americans, yet by number there are 10x (15x?) more Asians than Americans and the progress on disposable income in Asia is higher than in US. Why do you think your government wants to pivot its policy to Asia instead of Europe etc? And this despite US not being an Asian country and having even rejected to establish a free Asian trade zone!

[@blee7650]

@@friedhelmschroter8124: look at China's current economy vs the US. As Warren Buffett said, "Don't bet against America". For decades China has enjoyed a global 'favour nation status' giving them low tariffs. Not anymore. China's large population is not enough to keep their wheels moving as they've always depended on exports. Their domestic market simply does not have the disposable income as wealthy Western nations. Only a matter of time when China retaliates with higher import tariffs. Just you wait when Trump takes office. ALB, SQM, all lithium miners and integrated miners are at multi-year record lows.

[@localguide1611]

Great questions, crap answers. He pretty much gave no information.

[@raceyamates5435]

Great interview