The Metals Company draws investor interest as it pursues deep-sea mining for critical metals

The all-solid-state battery concept has once again been heatedly speculated by the market. The A-share battery sector rose against the trend amid a sluggish broader market. On October 9, CATL rose 3.84 percent, with turnover of 16.028 billion yuan and net main capital inflow of nearly 2.61 billion yuan. Tinci Materials, Farasis Energy, Great Power Energy and other stocks also moved higher during the same period. According to a review by China Times reporters, the solid-state battery progress of multiple battery and battery material companies is mostly still in the research and development or pilot stage, and large-scale mass production is still far off. At present, no company has put forward a mass-production timeline for all-solid-state batteries. Great Power Energy said there is currently no mass-production timeline, and it depends on upstream raw material prices. The raw materials are mainly solid electrolytes, and no production line has been built yet; it is only at the pilot stage. Tinci Materials said its solid-state battery electrolyte follows the sulfide route and is in the pilot stage, with one pilot production line put into use in the third quarter. Some industry insiders expect that mass production of all-solid-state batteries should occur no earlier than 2028 to 2030, and the current stage is equivalent to technical verification. On the policy front, seven departments including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jointly issued the 15th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the New Battery Industry, the first national-level special plan in China's battery field. It proposes that by 2030, all-solid-state batteries will initially achieve large-scale application, long-life lithium batteries will reach a cycle life of 15,000 times, and 19 tasks will be deployed around five major directions including full-chain innovation.

Binhai Energy announced that the company plans to jointly invest with its controlling shareholder Xuyang Group to establish Shangdu Xuyang New Energy Co., Ltd., with registered capital of 1 billion yuan, of which the company will subscribe 515 million yuan, accounting for 51.5%. The new company is intended to be used for the construction of an integrated anode material and supporting green power project, which will help accelerate capacity expansion. The transaction constitutes a related-party transaction, has been approved by the board of directors, and still needs approval from the shareholders' meeting.

Elevra Lithium rose 5.5% in Thursday's trading after signing a binding contract to supply spodumene concentrate to South Korea's LG Energy Solution from its North American Lithium project in Quebec. Under the deal, Elevra will deliver 240K dry metric tons of spodumene concentrate over three years, with shipments expected to begin in 2026. In addition to that contracted base quantity, the company said it may supply up to 90K dmt of optional volume over the same three-year term, subject to agreement between both parties. The deal comes as LG Energy looks to bolster its North American supply chain and meet growing demand for energy storage systems in the region. CEO Lucas Dow said securing a leading global battery manufacturer as a customer further strengthens the commercial position of NAL and supports the company's strategy of building a diversified portfolio of high-quality customers as it increases production.

Lopal Technology, which hit the daily price limit for two consecutive trading days, announced that its second-tier holding subsidiary Nanjing Lithium Source Nanotechnology has signed a Strategic Cooperation Framework Agreement with Zhejiang Jiyangtongxing Energy Technology. Under the agreement, from 2026 to 2030, Lopal will sell a total of 378,600 to 567,800 tonnes of lithium iron phosphate cathode material to Jiyangtongxing, with the agreement valid from January 1, 2026 to December 31, 2030, a period of five years. Jiyangtongxing was established in January 2025 with registered capital of 1 billion yuan and is the battery business entity under Geely Holding, responsible for the research, development and industrialisation of Geely's Shield Aegis battery. Lopal Technology entered the lithium iron phosphate cathode material industry in 2021 and ranked seventh globally by 2025 shipments. Its first-phase 30,000-tonne capacity at its Batang base in Indonesia is already fully operational, the second-phase 90,000-tonne capacity is ramping up, and the third-phase 120,000-tonne capacity is under construction. Once all phases are completed, total overseas capacity will reach 240,000 tonnes. This is another major long-term order secured by Lopal Technology over the past year. Since 2025, the company has signed multiple long-term supply agreements with customers including CATL, EVE Energy, Sunwoda, Chunen New Energy and LG Energy Solution, with cumulative new long-term orders exceeding 60 billion yuan, covering the period from 2025 to 2031. Lopal Technology said that if the agreement is fulfilled smoothly, it will have a positive impact on the company's future performance, but noted that the agreement is a strategic cooperation framework rather than a rigid price- and volume-locked contract, and the final realised scale will still depend on downstream demand, capacity commissioning and product validation progress.

Guangzhou Tinci Materials Technology, the global leader in electrolytes, has officially entered the countdown to its H-share issuance. On October 5, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange disclosed that it had passed the main board listing hearing, with J.P. Morgan, CITIC Securities, and GF Securities serving as joint sponsors. Founded in 2000 and headquartered in Guangzhou, Tinci Materials listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2014. As of the close on September 30, its A-share price stood at 31.20 yuan, with a total market capitalization of approximately 63.6 billion yuan. The company first filed on September 22, 2025, but that filing lapsed. It filed again on March 27, 2026, and received the China Securities Regulatory Commission's approval for overseas issuance and listing on August 19, planning to issue no more than 413 million ordinary shares overseas. Since 2016, the company has ranked first globally in electrolyte shipments for ten consecutive years, with a global market share of about 36% in 2025. It is also the world's largest supplier of lithium hexafluorophosphate and lithium bis(fluorosulfonyl)imide, with lithium hexafluorophosphate shipments accounting for 38.2% of the global market in 2025 and LiFSI shipments accounting for 47.2% of the global share. The prospectus shows that from 2023 to 2025, the company's operating revenue was 15.405 billion yuan, 12.518 billion yuan, and 16.65 billion yuan respectively, with net profit of 1.842 billion yuan, 478 million yuan, and 1.344 billion yuan respectively. In the first half of 2026, operating revenue reached 14.71 billion yuan, up 109.28% year on year, with net profit attributable to the parent company of 2.861 billion yuan, a surge of 967.91% year on year, and non-GAAP net profit of 2.807 billion yuan, a surge of 1096.69% year on year. The comprehensive gross margin rose to 33.55%. About 80% of the net proceeds from this H-share listing will be used for global business development, of which about 60% will go directly to the Morocco project and other overseas expansion as well as global upstream resource investment, about 10% to research and development, and the remaining about 10% to supplement working capital.

Amprius Technologies announced in late September 2026 that it entered into a US$75 million fixed-price Other Transaction Agreement with the U.S. Government for Project acCELLerate, alongside a separate U.S. Department of War IBAS grant, to build secure domestic high-energy density battery production for small unmanned aerial systems. The awards position Amprius to retrofit an existing South Korea-linked EV battery line into a U.S.-compliant facility capable of producing 12 million silicon-anode cells annually for NDAA-compliant defense customers. The company had already lifted its August 2026 guidance to at least US$140 million in full-year revenue with a narrower net loss. Amprius' narrative projects US$415.0 million in revenue and US$53.6 million in earnings by 2029, yielding a US$22.12 fair value, while the most cautious analysts assume about US$362 million of revenue and roughly US$40 million of earnings by 2029. The growing dependence on government-backed drone programs also concentrates risk should procurement cycles shift.