CATL’s evolving strategy and the lithium market

Lithium is no stranger to price volatility, and one asset has made an outsized contribution to that pattern: Jianxiawo, a lepidolite mine owned by CATL, the world’s largest battery maker. Regulators shut the mine in August 2025. It remains idle; but recurring talk of a restart has moved the market at times this year.

This REA Insight examines why a single mine mattered so much. At its 2024 peak, Jianxiawo supplied almost 5% of global lithium from the top of the cost curve. CATL kept it running through the downturn and prolonged the so-called “lithium winter”. Cheap lithium helped CATL more than its rivals in three ways:

• It intensified a cell price war that rewarded CATL’s superior utilisation;
• It let CATL offset upstream losses with cell margins;
• It squeezed the midstream suppliers its competitors relied on.
  
  

CATL’s operating margin rose well above 20% while rivals’ margins compressed.

That supply-side lever is now spent. Jianxiawo is sub-scale in a market heading for more than 3mt LCE by 2030, and regulators, not CATL, control its restart. CATL’s earnings are rotating towards energy storage, data-centre power and services, making it more tolerant of higher lithium prices.

• What role did Jianxiawo play in CATL’s strategy in 2022–25, and why did cheap lithium benefit CATL more than its rivals?
• Why has that lever weakened, and how has CATL adapted?
• Could sodium-ion give CATL influence over marginal lithium demand—and what would that mean for lithium prices and producers?