SK Nexilis to build first foreign copper foil factory in Malaysia

Company to triple production capacity through factory at KKIP

2021-01-26     Gijong Lee
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SK Nexilis on Tuesday said its board has decided to built its first copper foil factory abroad at Malaysia.

The new factory will be built at Kota Kinabalu Industrial Park (KKIP) at Sabah state, the company said.

SK Nexilis will invest 650 billion won to built the 44,000 metric tonnes per year factory. Construction will begin sometime in the first half of 2021 and will start commercial production in 2023.

The company will secure an annual production rate of around 100,000 metric tonnes of copper foil once the Malaysia factory goes live.

SK Nexilis said KKIP was chosen as it had the lowest cost in electricity as well as their stable supply out of its candidates for the factory. There were harbors and a large internal airport nearby for export while gas and water infrastructure at the park was also excellent, the company said.

Area available to the company there was also three times that of its factory in Jeongeup, South Korea of 400,000 square-meter, which will make it convenient to expand the factory later on.

The company will also apply automation facilities to the factory. The company has recently applied unmanned vehicles and robots at its fourth factory at Jeongeup. SK Nexilis is planning to apply the same technology on its fifth and sixth factories at Jeongeup as well as Malaysia.

SK Nexilis was considering additional investments into Malaysia, Europe and US afterwards, it said.

It is planning to increase its copper foil production capacity by five times by 2025. 

SK Nexilis’ planned factory in Malaysia is 19 hours drive away from Iljin Material’s cooper foil factory at Sarawak state. It is over 1,000km away. Iljin had claimed that their factories being close by could lead to leak of talents who have learned its copper foil production recipe.

SK Nexilis has also said 100% of the energy used at its factory in KKIP will be renewable.