• 5 hours US Crude Oil Inventories See Sharp Drawdown, Bolstering Market Confidence
  • 8 hours Middle East Conflict Sends Egypt Scrambling to Replace Israel Gas
  • 10 hours Oil Surges over 3% As Israel Strikes Iran’s Natanz Enrichment Facility
  • 11 hours PetroChina Looks to De-Risk LNG Trades with North American Supply
  • 11 hours Oil Price Surge Threatens Asian Currencies
  • 14 hours Austria Urges EU to Reconsider Russian Gas Ban After Peace Deal
  • 15 hours Banks Boost Fossil Fuel Financing for The First Time since 2021
  • 15 hours China Continues to Stockpile Crude Oil
  • 16 hours World’s Top Oil Trader Sees Lower U.S. Output in 2025
  • 19 hours Mitsubishi Eyes $8 Billion Shale Gas Acquisition
  • 19 hours Oil Prices Up 2% as Israel-Iran Conflict Intensifies
  • 1 day Iraq's May Oil Exports to U.S. Surge Past 5 Million Barrels
  • 1 day Trump Fires Nuclear Chief in Energy Deregulation Shakeup
  • 1 day What Happens if Israel Targets Iran’s Energy Lifelines?
  • 1 day Oil Retreats 4% as Iran-Israel Strikes Avoid Major Supply Disruption
  • 1 day OPEC Oil Output Increase Falls Short of Target
  • 2 days EU Aims to Cut All Russian Gas Imports by 2027
  • 2 days Maintenance Drags China’s Refinery Throughput to 9-Month Low
  • 2 days TotalEnergies to Spend 30% of Capex on Power Business
  • 2 days Baker Hughes Reports Normal Operations Despite Middle East Tensions
  • 2 days ADNOC Led Consortium Bids to Take Over Australian Gas Giant
  • 2 days Oil Prices Surge as Israel and Iran Target Each Other’s Energy Infrastructure
  • 4 days Oil Prices Surge Over 8% as Iran Retaliates With Major Missile Strike on Israel
  • 4 days India Looks To Keep Domestic Rare Earth Supply at Home
  • 4 days Pakistan Strikes Critical Win With Oil, Gas Wildcat Discovery
  • 4 days Shippers on Edge Around Strait of Hormuz After Israel-Iran Escalation
  • 5 days EU to Require EU Firms to Disclose Details of Russian Gas Contracts
  • 5 days China’s LNG Imports Set for Rare Decline in 2025
  • 5 days UK Firm Energean Halts Offshore Israel Production After Strikes on Iran
  • 5 days EU Will Need $280 Billion Investment to Boost Nuclear Energy
  • 5 days Iran Says No Damage to Oil Facilities From Israeli Strikes
  • 5 days China Record Drives World EV Sales Up 24% in May
  • 5 days Oil Prices Soar After Israel Attacks Iran's Nuclear Facilities
  • 5 days Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill Could Hurt His Own Energy Agenda
  • 5 days Egypt Locks In Landmark LNG Import Deals With Aramco, Shell, and Trafigura
  • 5 days UK Pays Record Sums to Wind Power Generators to Switch Off
  • 6 days Alberta Plots New Oil Sands Pipeline to B.C. in Bid to Bypass U.S.
  • 6 days Russia Discusses Natural Gas Supply With China
  • 6 days Canada’s Trans Mountain Pipeline Could Boost Capacity by 2027
  • 6 days Supermajor TotalEnergies Boosts AI Use in Its Energy Strategy

Battery Majors Suffer Profit Drop on Lower-Than-Expected EV Sales

LG Energy, one of the biggest players in the EV battery space, reported a 58% drop in operating profits for the second quarter of the year, attributing the figure to the slowdown in EV sales.

The news came a day after another South Korean battery major, SK On, declared an emergency after 10 consecutive quarters of losses stemming from trends in EV demand that have missed analyst and company expectations.

LG Energy and SK On are, respectively, the world’s third- and fourth-largest EV battery manufacturers.

Reporting on the LG Energy results, which are preliminary, Bloomberg noted a tax credit under the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act that helped the company stay in the black, Excluding that credit, LG Energy dipped into an operating loss of some $180,000.

SK On, for its part, has had worse luck than its bigger rival, without IRA tax credits to help it through the rough times. The Financial Times reported on Sunday that the company had seen its net debt swell to about $10 billion over the last two years and a half, which was a fivefold increase in the period. The reason: EV sales have fallen short of projections—well short.

“We have our back against the wall,” chief executive Lee Seok-hee wrote in a letter to employees. “We should all pull together.”

The company appears to have made a string of sub-optimal decisions to get to this point, namely aggressive investments in Europe and the United States in anticipation of an EV boom, according to the Financial Times.

Unlike the South Korean battery makers, the two world leaders—BYD and CATL—are mostly exposed to their home market where EV sales are the strongest in the world, so they have been shielded by the disappointing sales numbers on the other two key markets for the vehicles.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com



Join the discussion | Back to homepage


ADVERTISEMENT


Leave a comment

Leave a comment

EXXON Mobil -0.35
Open57.81 Trading Vol.6.96M Previous Vol.241.7B
BUY 57.15
Sell 57.00
Oilprice - The No. 1 Source for Oil & Energy News