(Yicai) Jan. 4 -- Shares of Yunnan Energy New Material fell after the leading Chinese lithium-ion battery separator supplier said it plans to reduce both the investment amount and the annual production capacity of the new plant it is building in the United States.

Yunnan Energy [SHE: 002812] was trading down 3.2 percent at CNY53.11 (USD7.42) as of 11.00 a.m. in Shenzhen today. The stock plunged 57 percent last year.

Yunnan Energy will lower the investment amount in its new plant in Sydney, Ohio, to USD276 million from USD916 million because the estimated project revenue fell short of expectations, the Yuxi, Yunnan province-based firm announced yesterday.

Moreover, the company will cut the US plant’s annual production capacity to about 700 million square meters of base films and supporting coating equipment from 1 billion sqm to 1.2 billion sqm, it added.

Yunnan Energy unveiled its plan to build a new facility in the US in May 2022. As of the end of June last year , it had already invested CNY255 million (USD35.6 million) in the US plant, accounting for 4 percent of the total budget and completing about 10 percent of the construction.

In the first half of last year, Yunnan Energy reported its first earnings decline since it went public. The firm’s operating income and net profit fell 3.3 percent and 30.4 percent to CNY5.6 billion (USD782.3 million) and CNY1.5 billion, respectively.

Yunnan Energy was the world's No. 1 power battery separator manufacturer in 2022, achieving a global market share of 37 percent.

Editor: Futura Costaglione