SK Nexilis’ fifth factory at Jeongeup will began production in January, 2022, the company CEO said.
Company CEO Kim Young-tae said at the company’s third quarter conference call that the factory will wrap up process change notification with its customer by the end of 2021, and begun selling copper foils in January, 2022.
The sixth factory’s schedule will be six months behind this, he said. It will likely go live in July, 2022.
When the sixth factory goes live, SK Nexilis will have an annual production capacity of 52,000 metric tonnes, a substantial increase from its current capacity of 34,000 metric tonnes from its four factories.
Kim said the company’s strength in wide and long copper foils are seeing rising demand from its customer as well as the market.
SK Nexilis will also announce its plans to construct copper foil factories abroad within the year, Kim said.
Copper foil will see demand surge in Europe, China and the US, the CEO said, and the company was reviewing its options comprehensively.
Copper foil is a core component for batteries used in electric vehicles (EV).
Kim said the global EV market’s growth rate differs per region and Europe showed the strongest growth this year.
But demand from EV and energy storage systems will continue to increase steadily in the coming years, he added.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused a temporary oversupply in copper foils but demand is expected to recover after next year, the company said. SK Nexilis had superior technology and high value products compared to its competitors, the firm said at the conference call, which will allow it to maintain higher profitability compared to rivals.
SKC’s mobility material business, which includes SK Nexilis, posted 15.2 billion won in operating profits and 103.1 billion won in sales in the third quarter.
SKC’s total earnings for the quarter came to operating profit of 55.3 billion won and sales of 723.7 billion won.
