(Yicai Global) Dec. 1 -- Shares of Chinese battery materials manufacturer Easpring Material Technology surged to an all-time high after the firm said it has penned two long-term agreements to ensure its raw material supply.

Easpring's stock price [SHE: 300073] soared as much as 9.7 percent to CNY114.98 (USD18.10) intraday, the highest ever. The shares are up by more than half this year.

The firm has inked agreements with two suppliers to purchase a maximum of 650,000 tons of ternary precursor materials, the Beijing-based company said in a statement yesterday.

First, Easpring agreed with Zhejiang province-based Huayou Cobalt to buy up to 350,000 tons of precursors between 2022 to 2025, per the statement. Moreover, it will purchase from 200,000 to 300,000 tons of such materials from Changsha-headquartered CNGR Advanced Material from 2022 to 2024. The orders will be priced competitively, it added.

This is not the first time that the firms work together. Easpring has been a client of the two suppliers at least since 2018, per the statement. Last year, Easpring purchased CNY914 million (USD143.7 million) worth of products from Huayou Cobalt and its orders from CNGR tallied CNY370 million.

Easpring and CNGR plan to deepen their partnership. The former interns to invest in the latter's laterite ore project in Indonesia to produce 60,000 tons of nickel compounds per year, per the statement. The pair also plan to partner on a phosphate ore and lithium iron phosphate project in southwestern China's Guizhou province. 

The buyer is not running out of money. In mid-November, Easpring completed a private placement of about CNY4.6 billion (USD730.1 million) by issuing shares to 14 investors, including Huayou Cobalt, as well as foreign investment banks J. P. Morgan, and UBS. 

The agreements failed to prompt significant stock price surges for the two suppliers. CNGR [SHE: 300919] was 1.5 percent down in the afternoon. 

Huayou Cobalt [SHA: 603799] climbed 1 percent. 

Editor: Emmi Laine, Xiao Yi