By WANG Yong

Chinese mining company Sinomine Resource Group on Wednesday night released its annual and first-quarter reports. The company achieved revenue of 8 billion yuan (US$1.2 billion) last year, a year-on-year increase of 232 percent, and a net profit of 3.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 488 percent.

In Q1, revenue stood at 2.1 billion yuan, up 12.1 percent, and a net profit of 1.1 billion yuan, up 41.4. Excellent though these figures may appear, the numbers are significantly lower than in 2021. In Q1 last year, net profit increased about 8.5 times.

Sinomine Resource is a global mining group. With its subsidiaries, the company holds 106 mining rights of various types worldwide, an increase of nine from the previous reporting period. Lithium is its top priority, followed by rare light metals such as cesium and rubidium, which used to be listed first.

Lithium salt products, including lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide, are the raw materials for EV batteries.

Last year, Sinomine made 6.3 billion yuan from lithium, close to four-fifths of its revenue. During the same period, the gross profit margin of rare light metals decreased by 1.6 percentage points but still reached 64.5 percent.

In February last year, Sinomine acquired the Bikita lithium mine in Zimbabwe for a base price of US$180 million and now holds 100 percent of the equity in the mine. Bikita has an estimated 65 million tons of lithium ore with potential cesium and tantalum resources in the area.

After the above mine reaches full capacity, Sinomine will have the lithium capacity to become 100 percent self-sufficient in raw materials for its lithium battery business.