Fire Breaks Out at CATL’s Battery Factory

On the afternoon of September 29, a fire broke out at the Z base production workshop of Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited (CATL) located in Jiaocheng District, Ningde City, Fujian Province. An engineer saw smoke coming from the factory at 11:40 am from the employee dormitory opposite the Z base. Half an hour later, flames could be seen on the roof of the factory.

The Z base has two production workshops, Z1 and Z2. The Z2 workshop has 6 production lines, each of which can produce 30,000 batteries per day at full capacity, enough to assemble about 50,000 Tesla Model 3s per month. In addition to production personnel, some of CATL’s overseas business project teams also work here, and their work may also be affected.

“Because it’s close to the National Day holiday, quite a few engineers chose to take the day off,” he said. Most of the staff at the Z base have been evacuated, and no casualties have been reported so far.

As of the time of writing, CATL and local officials in Ningde have not disclosed the cause of the accident. On the evening of September 29, Zeng Yuqun, Chairman of CATL, responded to Jiemian News saying “the problem is not significant”. Later, CATL’s investor relations department said on the investor interaction platform that the cause of the fire is still under investigation, the number of affected products is small, and the impact on the company’s overall production and operation is minimal.

On the opening of the market on September 30, under the stimulus of policies supporting the stock market issued by China’s financial ministries, the accident did not affect CATL’s stock price, which rose by 11% at closing, and its market value returned to over one trillion yuan after a year.

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