The writer has done his homework, a lot of information for the word count.
From EV, September 14:
Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. (CATL) has agreed to help build a battery plant in Egypt with a local manufacturer, in a contract signed on Sunday in front of Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, less than two weeks after President Xi Jinping’s state visit to the country.
CATL, headquartered in the Chinese city of Ningde and founded by Robin Zheng, is the world’s largest battery manufacturer.
The plant in Egypt is described by the country’s cabinet as an industrial base for battery systems, which is pack assembly rather than cell production.
EnterpriseAM reports that the cells themselves will be supplied by CATL from China, with Egypt handling assembly, battery management integration, thermal management and final system integration.
That is the only account to set out the split, and neither the cabinet statement nor CATL has confirmed it.
The first phase is to produce 1 gigawatt-hour a year for heavy commercial vehicles, at an investment of more than 2 billion Egyptian pounds, about $39 million.
A second phase would raise capacity to 5GWh and add passenger-car batteries and storage systems for solar and wind projects. The project targets 40% local content and both domestic and export markets.
No construction or completion date has been given, and the site has not been named.
Who Signed
Maged Wahib, chairman of BME, and Luo Haining, CATL’s Director of International Investment, signed the contract. Industry Minister Khaled Hashem attended, with BME’s project manager Amin Karim Ghabbour and board member Lotfy Tadros.BME was established by MCV, an Egyptian commercial vehicle maker, and Auto D for Industry, Trade and Supplies.
MCV was already a CATL customer, using its batteries in the C127 electric bus, and runs a $62 million Volvo electric bus line at New Salheya with capacity for 1,200 vehicles a year for export to Europe....
....MUCH MORE
If I had to bet, I'd bet the plant won't be too far from the Suez Canal, making a nice bookend with the Chinese base in Djiouti at the approaches to the Bab el-Mandeb/Red Sea, just to keep an eye on things.
The stock was down 6% in Hong Kong, not on this news but probably because Beijing is blessing an industry roll-up with CATL to be the survivor. Or because of President Trump slamming the Ford - CATL tieup. Who knows? Stocks go up, stocks go down but CATL is the class of the field.
513.00 Hong Kong Dollars, down 36.00 (–6.56%) last I saw.
One last note: CATL is also going after a couple business that Elon Musk has pursued, truck batteries and stationary storage batteries.