(Yicai) Nov. 29 -- Shenzhen Senior Technology Material, one of China’s major manufacturers of separators for lithium-ion batteries, will supply South Korean electric car battery maker LG Energy Solutions with at least 12 billion square meters of battery separators to its plants around the world over the next seven years.

LG Energy Solution will prioritize the buying of Senior Technology’s separators in foreign markets and Senior Technology will offer LG Energy Solution’s overseas plants its best prices, Shenzhen-based Senior Technology said yesterday, citing the strategic co-operation memorandum signed by the two parties that day. The value of the contract was not given.

This is the second long-term deal that Senior Technology has inked with LG Energy Solution since it was spun off from the Seoul-based chemical giant LG Chem in 2020. In August 2021 Senior Technology signed a four-and-a-half year deal with the battery maker worth about CNY4.3 billion (USD605.7 million). It is not clear how much of the 2021 contract has been fulfilled, and it is not known if the contract will continue after the signing of the new one.

Senior Technology is also supplier to Sweden’s Northvolt and Norway’s Freyr Battery. In June last year, the separator maker inked a six-year contract with Freyr Battery that is likely to be worth CNY737 million (USD103 million) and in March 2021 it inked a six-year deal with Northvolt with a value of around CNY3.3 billion (USD470 million).

Senior Technology, which runs several factories in China, began work on the second phase of its Swedish plant last week. Costing EUR200 million (USD219.7 million), this facility will mainly supply Stockholm-based Northvolt. Senior Technology also said in August that it will invest CNY5 billion to build another overseas production base in Malaysia.

Despite the new deal, Senior Technology’s share price [SHE:300568] closed down 7.5 percent at CNY14.77 (USD2) today. In the previous four trading days, the share price had gained around 6.4 percent against a sliding benchmark index.

Editor: Kim Taylor