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“Processing is where a nation becomes a price taker or a price maker, and China is a price maker because they do a lot of processing,” Kunal Shah, senior vice president at technology provider Aquatech, said.
“Look, China has done what they’ve done in 15 years, we saw that execution capability of EPC [engineering, procurement, construction]. India doesn’t have 15 years and we don’t have five years even to copy — we have five years to differentiate,” he said.
The implementation and execution of refining and processing technology was also a key topic for Indian market participants, including for attracting investment.
“We’ve seen examples in Australia of some very experienced people trying to set up a refinery having cost overruns for multiple years, so we need to get technology integrators who have already proven experience,” Harin Kanani, managing director of lithium electrolyte producer Neogen Chemicals, said.
“Technologies exist but the puzzle is to put it all together at a price point which a cell manufacturer, a cam manufacturer and then eventually a battery that I can afford. Ultimately, bankers are not going to fund a $400 million refinery on new technology,” Shah said.
“One of the most important steps which government had taken [in 2021] was the PLI [production-linked incentive] scheme, where the first encouragement was for cell companies to go for domestic raw material,” Ankur Khaitan, managing director and chief executive officer of emerging Indian graphite and anode materials producer TACC Limited, said.
“Of course, both the government and cell companies understand that there was no raw material available domestically but it got people engaged into serious manufacturing of the raw materials.”
Khaitan said regional states in India are also keen to attract investment from advanced technology sectors even though it may not provide the same scale of employment as other industries.
Demand from a downstream build-out of electric vehicle and cell production will catalyze the development of midstream processing and refining within India, according to Kanani.
“The main thing is when you can commit to long-term supply contracts, the entire ecosystem has to basically be ready to commit to that. It starts from the vehicle manufacturer agreeing to a certain minimum of pay and then the cell producer, etc.” Kanani said. “Once our OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] and the cell production actually start in India, we’ll have to do that.”
Market participants pushed for further policy incentives to accelerate the build-out of the production of recycled salts, cathode and anode material, as well as cells and battery packs.
The Indian national government’s 2026-2027 budget, announced on Sunday February 1, extended basic customs duty exemptions on the import of capital goods used for lithium-ion cell production for battery energy storage systems (BESS).
The government also announced a 20-year tax exemption, until 2047, for foreign companies that use data centers in India to service their global customers.
However, some market participants had expected to see more policy support announced in the budget.
With India lacking primary resources of key battery cathode materials such as lithium, cobalt and nickel, the country’s battery recycling sector is becoming a growing supplier of domestically sourced recycled critical minerals.
“Until we get to relevant economies of scale, we need to figure out how to subsidize the system and the entire circular economy framework here,” Rajat Verma, founder and CEO of Indian recycled critical minerals producer Lohum, said.
“Whether it is the government or the producer or a shared responsibility of the producer and recycler, that needs to be thought through, especially as we look at [subsidies] compared to the pressure on the exchequer when it comes to importing key materials from outside,” Verma said.
“Incentives can be in the form of CAPEX [capital expenditure] and OPEX [operating expenses] but it also needs to be in the form of how the government can help absorb price volatility – say a floor pricing to your cobalt sulfate, lithium carbonate and nickel sulfate, so that people can take the raw material according to that level in a worst-case scenario,” Kapil Suhane, manager at Ace Green Recycling, said.
Fastmarkets’ daily price assessment for lithium carbonate 99.5% Li2CO3 min, battery grade, spot prices cif China, Japan & Korea was $17.00-20.00 per kg on Monday February 2, down from $17.80-22.00 per kg on Friday January 30.
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