Yichun approves environmental report for CATL's Jianxiawo lithium mine

Approval notice details

The Zhenkouli-Jianxiawo site straddles Yifeng and Fengxin counties in Jiangxi and covers 2.5029 square kilometres, the Yichun Municipal Ecology and Environment Bureau said in its approval. Regulators treated it as a new development. The designed mining recovery rate is 98%, and usable ore resources are about 513.525 million tonnes. Annual ore mining capacity is 30 million tonnes over a designed mine life of 18 years. Ore will be crushed and either conveyed to a concentrator or loaded for external sale. Total investment is about RMB 4.35 billion, of which roughly RMB 288 million, or 6.61%, is for environmental protection.

The approval covers the environmental impact assessment, a separate hurdle from the mining licence that lapsed in August 2025. The notice sets no restart date.

The approval does not put ore on the market. Under the "three simultaneous" system, environmental facilities must be designed, built and commissioned together with the main project.

Yichun Times New Energy Mining must obtain a pollutant discharge permit before starting production facilities or generating emissions, and the project may formally commence operations only after its supporting environmental protection facilities pass acceptance procedures. The notice sets out no schedule for either step. Benchmark Mineral Intelligence has said completing the environmental review could stretch into 2027.

How the mine got here

Jianxiawo's troubles trace back to August 2025, when its mining licence expired as China tightened mineral classification rules and subjected the deposit's lithium-bearing clay to stricter standards. CATL suspended operations there then. The project's mineral designation changed to lithium ore from ceramic clay containing lithium, which required a fresh environmental impact assessment. That report went out for public consultation on 27 July. CATL obtained a safety production permit on 29 June 2026, clearing an earlier hurdle.

On Friday 7 August, Shanghai Securities News reported that the mine remained pending environmental approval and that CATL had been asked to complete the assessment procedures as soon as possible. The Yifeng County Ecology and Environment Bureau told the outlet the mine stayed on maintenance, with no ore transportation or crushing taking place.

A brief, informal restart in July bypassed an unresolved dispute over the mine's tailings pond. Market sources pointed to more than 70 formal reports, according to Benchmark. Satellite imagery showed activity resuming in June and stopping again in the first week of August, the firm said.

The supply arithmetic

Benchmark cut its 2026 mined output forecast for Jianxiawo to 32,000 tonnes of LCE from 62,500 tonnes, reflecting production already lost during the shutdown and the risk that approval slipped into the fourth quarter. Its 2027 forecast stayed at about 99,000 tonnes. Both figures sit below nameplate capacity approaching 150,000 tonnes a year. Other Jiangxi mines are expected to produce about 108,000 tonnes of LCE in 2026, more than three times what Benchmark expects from Jianxiawo this year, and inspections could uncover similar waste and tailings deficiencies.

The disruption comes as lithium demand from stationary battery storage and improving electric-vehicle sales begins to reshape a market battered by oversupply since the price boom faded in 2022. Albemarle, the world's largest lithium producer, described stationary-storage demand as "off the charts" on its August earnings call.

Expectations of unfavourable inspection results could push producers to mine faster and use quotas that might otherwise go unused, BMI analysts said.

What happens next

The next gate is the pollutant discharge permit, followed by acceptance of the environmental protection facilities. Only then may the project formally commence operations. The approval sets no date for the first tonne.