Nov 1 (Reuters) - Lithium Americas Corp said on Monday it has offered to buy Canadian lithium miner Millennial Lithium Corp for about $400 million, seeking to out-bid Chinese battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology Co Ltd (CATL).

The scramble for the miner comes at a time when there is surging demand for lithium-ion rechargeable batteries used to power electric vehicles.

The deal could potentially provide Lithium Americas with an additional 24,000 tonnes per year of battery-quality lithium carbonate for 40 years, the company said in a statement.

Each Millennial shareholder will receive C$4.70 ($3.80) per share, payable in Lithium Americas common shares, and C$0.001 in cash. Millennial shareholders will own about 9.9% of Lithium Americas, based on the company's closing price on Friday.

Shares of Millennial rose 27% to $4.67 Monday in early trading on the Toronto Venture exchange.

The Lithium Americas offer trumped C$3.85 per share bid that CATL made to Millennial in September, which in turn had outbid July's offer of C$3.60 each by Ganfeng Lithium Co Ltd , one of the world's biggest producers of lithium chemicals used in electric vehicle batteries. (https://reut.rs/3CBKPUK)

Millennial has given CATL until Nov. 16 to revise the offer to match Lithium Americas' proposal, the company said in the statement.

($1 = 1.2378 Canadian dollars) (Reporting by Ruhi Soni in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)