Battery anode makers rush to expand factories

Their aggressive expansions will continue to next year

2020-08-06     Stan Lee
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More battery anode makers investing to expand their production capacities as demand for batter cells in electric vehicles (EV) rise.

The four major anode makers in South Korea are announcing more investment plans then any other time.

EcoPro BM announced in June that it was investing 86.5 billion won to build a new anode material factory line dedicated to SK Innovation. The company is planning to invest 1.5 trillion on in the next five years with 300 billion won ear marked for anode materials and recycling.

Cosmo AM&T recently spent 31.2 billion won to acquire the precursor line run by STM, Samsung SDI’s anode material making subsidiary. The company also said it will be spending 43 billion won to build a new anode material line on August last year. 

Posco Chemical in February last year announced it would be investing 219.1 billion won to expand its anode factory. It announced further expansion this week, saying it will invest 289.5 billion won more. The anode factory at Gwangyang was designed to support capacity increase up to 90,000 metric tonnes per year. Combined with its other factory in Gumi, Posco will likely have a production capacity of 100,000 metric tonnes of anode materials per year by 2023.

L&F, back in February of 2019, said it would spend 70 billion to expand its anode materials factory. The expansion was suppose to wrap up by June but this has been delayed to March of next year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The company is planning secure the funds for the expansion though pain-in capital increase.

Anode material makers will likely continue to expand their production facilities next year to follow the expansions of battery cell makers. LG Chem, Samsung SDI and SK Innovation is expected secure production capacities of 100GWh, 30GWh and 40GWh, respectively, by the end of the year. Their capacities are expected to double by 2025.