Yunnan Energy New Material plans to invest 447 million euros in Hungary to build a second phase of isolation film production line and supporting factory, with a total capacity of about 800 million square meters per year. According to the research of Gao Gong Lithium Industry, overseas isolation membrane prices remain more than twice that of domestic prices, with gross margins reaching 60%-70%.
Enjie Co., Ltd. (002812.SZ), the leading lithium battery separator, has made a further step forward in the "hot land" of overseas lithium battery investment in Hungary.
Enjie Co., Ltd. announced tonight that its wholly-owned subsidiary SEMCORP Hungary Kft. will invest in the construction of the second wet-process lithium battery separator film production line and supporting factory in Debrecen, Hungary. The total investment amount of the project is estimated to be about 447 million euros (about 3.48 billion yuan), and the project plans to build four fully automatic imported film production lines and supporting coating production lines, with a total capacity of about 800 million square meters per year.
Enjie Co., Ltd. mentioned in the announcement that the above investment is to meet the stable and timely supply of the company's wet-process lithium battery separator products to overseas customers, enhance the overseas market development of the company's wet-process lithium battery separator business, realize global layout, and further enhance the company's international influence.
It is reported that Enjie Co., Ltd. is the leader in wet-process lithium battery separators, with the largest supply capacity of lithium battery separators in the world. The 2023 annual report shows that the company has formed a designed production capacity of 9.384 billion square meters per year.
This is Enjie Co., Ltd.'s second investment in Debrecen, Hungary's second largest city. According to the company's 2023 annual report, the Hungarian lithium battery separator production base of the company has been completed, and the first coating film production line has been started during the reporting period, and the first base film production line has been through. It is expected that the Hungarian production base will quickly respond to the needs of customers in Europe and other places from 2024.
Regarding the Hungarian base, Yu Xue, the Secretary of the Board of Directors of Enjie Co., Ltd. said at the online reception day for investors of listed companies in Yunnan on May 13 that the European Hungarian base is fully engaged in the verification work of multiple overseas customers, and is expected to start mass production of production lines in the second half of this year according to the completion of customer verification.
From the demand point of view, Enjie Co., Ltd. has previously disclosed overseas orders. In 2022, Enjie of Hungary reached a cooperation agreement with French ACC Company, which stipulated that Enjie of Hungary will supply about 655 million euros of lithium battery separator products to ACC from 2024 to 2030.
From the geographical layout, Debrecen has become a hot land for Chinese lithium industry chain to go global. The Hungarian factory of Ningde Times has planned a capacity of 100GWh in Debrecen, with a high investment amount of 7.34 billion euros. At the same time, Eve Energy Co., Ltd. (300014.SZ) is building its first battery factory in Europe, and Sunwoda Electronic (300207.SZ) also regards Hungary as the destination of setting up factories in Europe.
In fact, under the trend of domestic lithium industry chain "involution", the pace of industrial chain enterprise going global is accelerating. Recently, Capchem Technology and Shenzhen Kedali Industry Co., Ltd. announced that they will build factories in the United States. Financial associated press reporter was informed by Jiangsu Lopal Tech. that the company's "future focus is still on the expansion of overseas production capacity".
According to the Highnick Research on lithium battery industry, due to the overseas separator prices being more than twice the domestic ones and the gross margin can reach 60%-70%, enterprises that seize the opportunity to go global have further established market advantages.