POSCO Officially Opens Lithium Hydroxide Factory in South Jeolla Province

Korea: To improve the supply of Lithium for secondary batteries, POSCO Holdings is building Korea's first Lithium hydroxide factory, the company announced on Tuesday. It added that the plant will manufacture enough Lithium per year for about 600,000 electric cars (EV).

In South Jeolla Province, the Yulchon Industrial Complex hosted the ground-breaking ceremony on Tuesday. Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo, a politician and former presidential candidate, POSCO Group Chairman Choi Jeong-woo, and LG Energy Solution President Kim Myung-hwan were among those present.

The POSCO Group Chairman Choi Jeong-woo stated, we will increase the global competitiveness of Lithium and other important resources, lead domestic material localization and contribute to the development of domestic industries, including the secondary battery industry.

The new facility will be able to produce 25,000 tonnes of Lithium Hydroxide annually, which is enough to power about 600,000 EVs. By investing over 575 billion won, POSCO Holdings hopes to finish the project by 2025.

The establishment of the Lithium hydroxide factory is a component of Argentina's second investment phase, which was announced in October. In order to produce Lithium Hydroxide locally, POSCO Holdings established a secondary process and decided to locate the primary process of generating Lithium Carbonate, the raw material for Lithium Hydroxide, at its salt flat in Argentina.

POSCO Holdings purchased the Hombre Muerto Lithium salt flat in Argentina in 2018 to secure Lithium, a crucial material for cathode materials in secondary batteries, and is now building the primary and secondary processes for the production of 25,000 tonnes of Lithium. POSCO Holdings intends to increase Lithium production through future investments based on the Hombre Muerto Lithium salt flat up to 100,000 tonnes by 2028.

In the meantime, POSCO Group is operating a cathode material facility for POSCO Future M and building an ore Lithium plant for POSCO Pilbara Lithium Solution inside the Yulchon Industrial Complex. This building will eventually house a secondary battery material production facility.

POSCO, originally known as Pohang Iron and Steel Company, is a South Korean steel-producing organisation with its headquarters in Pohang. According to this statistic, it produced 42,000,000 metric tonnes of crude steel in 2015 (41,000,000 long tonnes and 46,000,000 short tonnes), ranking it as the sixth-largest steelmaker in the world. According to market value, it was the biggest steel manufacturing firm in the world in 2010. Additionally, it was recognised as the 146th-largest company in the world by the Fortune Global 500 in 2012.

Currently, POSCO has two integrated steel mills in South Korea's Pohang and Gwangyang. In February 2020, USS-POSCO Industries, a joint venture between POSCO and U.S. Steel that had been running in Pittsburg, California, was entirely acquired by U.S. Steel.