WA lithium miner Galaxy Resources has signed a deal with one of the world’s largest battery manufacturers to develop electric bike batteries.
The agreement will see Galaxy, which has a lithium mine in Ravensthorpe, use American company K2 Energy’s technology to create a lithium battery plant in China.
Galaxy’s managing director Iggy Tan says there is a huge market for battery-powered electric bikes.
“We are going to produce something like 350,000 of these e-bike batteries,” he said.
“Today, China produces something like 27 million e-bikes every year and they tend to be the very heavy lead acid batteries so we see this mass conversion happening in the next few years.”
“We have just signed an MOU for an industrial park in China and we have just commenced a process for environmental approval.”
Mr Tan says adding value to the company’s lithium will protect Galaxy from fluctuations in the commodity market.
“If we were just to ship our concentrate out, it is worth just $1 one per lithium unit, by converting it to lithium carbonate it is actually worth $3, by converting it to a battery it is actually worth $500 per lithium unit.”
