{"id":1131534,"date":"2021-12-19T00:19:36","date_gmt":"2021-12-19T05:19:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1131534"},"modified":"2021-12-19T00:19:38","modified_gmt":"2021-12-19T05:19:38","slug":"china-poor-virus-handling-obstructs-electric-vehicle-manufacturing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/china-poor-virus-handling-obstructs-electric-vehicle-manufacturing\/","title":{"rendered":"China: Poor Virus Handling Obstructs Electric Vehicle Manufacturing"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">16<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fchina-poor-virus-handling-obstructs-electric-vehicle-manufacturing%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1131534&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-1236924124-640x335-1.png\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p class=\"subheading\">Two cobalt salt plants in China\u2019s eastern province of Zhejiang <a href=\"https:\/\/www.globaltimes.cn\/page\/202112\/1241661.shtml\">halted<\/a> production on December 10 in response to local Chinese coronavirus \u201cflare-ups,\u201d the <em>Global Times<\/em> reported Thursday, noting the labor suspensions threaten to cause a spike in the prices of&nbsp;lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, which rely on cobalt as a key component.<\/p>\n<p>The two mines affected by the closures produced a combined&nbsp;cobalt sulfate output of 700 tons in November 2021, a figure representing&nbsp;\u201cabout 12 percent of the total supply of cobalt sulfate in China that month, while their combined output of cobalt chloride reached 600 tons, accounting for 14 percent of the total supply,\u201d&nbsp;Ma Rui, an analyst with the Shanghai Metals Market, an industry news site, told the <em>Global Times<\/em> on December 16.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p>\u201c[I]t\u2019s hard to tell when the two plants could resume production,\u201d Ma said when asked how long he predicted the two cobalt mines to remain shuttered.<\/p>\n<p>The average price of&nbsp;lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicle production has increased by more than 60 percent over the past year, according to&nbsp;Ma. The metals industry analyst attributed the rising prices to&nbsp;a corresponding increase in the price of raw materials used to build the batteries. In addition to cobalt, lithium-ion batteries used to power electric vehicles typically <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s43246-020-00095-x\">contain<\/a> lithium, nickel, graphite, aluminum, and copper.<\/p>\n<p>Over 70 percent of the world\u2019s cobalt supply comes from mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), most of which are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/world\/africa\/exclusive-congo-talks-with-chinas-huayou-end-dispute-over-cobalt-mine-2021-09-27\/\">owned<\/a> by Chinese firms.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cAs of last year, 15 of the 19 cobalt-producing mines in Congo were owned or financed by Chinese companies,\u201d the <em>New York Times<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/11\/20\/world\/china-congo-cobalt.html\">reported<\/a> on December 7, citing a data analysis conducted jointly by the newspaper and Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDeadly rioting in July near a port in South Africa, where much of Congo\u2019s cobalt is exported to China and elsewhere, caused a global jump in the metal\u2019s prices, a surge that only worsened through the rest of the year,\u201d according to the newspaper.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLast month, the mining industry\u2019s leading forecaster said the rising cost of raw materials was likely to drive up battery costs for the first time in years, threatening to disrupt automakers\u2019 plans to attract customers with competitively priced electric cars,\u201d the&nbsp;<em>Times<\/em> recalled on December 7.<\/p>\n<p>Chile, which is closely <a href=\"https:\/\/www.globaltimes.cn\/page\/202111\/1239910.shtml\">tied<\/a> to China through Beijing\u2019s infrastructure-building Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2021\/jun\/14\/electric-cost-lithium-mining-decarbonasation-salt-flats-chile\">supplies<\/a> nearly 25 percent of the world\u2019s lithium. Roughly 30 percent of the world\u2019s copper supply also comes from Chile.<\/p>\n<p>Zhejiang authorities ordered two of the province\u2019s major cobalt salt mines to halt production on December 10 due to alleged \u201cflare-ups\u201d of the Chinese coronavirus, according to the <em>Global Times<\/em>. While the state-run newspaper&nbsp;did not provide further details about the plants\u2019 coronavirus outbreaks, news of the mines\u2019 closures leaked on December 16, the same day Dongguan, a major manufacturing hub in&nbsp;Zhejiang, severely <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/asia\/2021\/12\/17\/china-manufacturing-hub-locks-down-over-coronavirus-threatening-economy\/\">restricted<\/a> travel out of the city to contain its own coronavirus epidemic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two cobalt salt plants in China\u2019s eastern province of Zhejiang halted production on December 10 in response to local Chinese coronavirus \u201cflare-ups,\u201d the Global Times reported Thursday, noting the labor &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1131534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1131534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1131534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1131534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1131534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1131534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1131534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}