SEOUL– EcoPro BM Co., a South Korean cathode producer, said Friday it has completed the construction of a new production plant that has the world’s largest output capacity.

The new CAM7 plant in Pohang, about 370 kilometers southeast of Seoul, was built by its joint venture company formed with battery maker Samsung SDI Co. and touts an annual production capacity of 54,000 tons, raising the company’s total production output to 90,000 tons a year, the company said.

The plant will go into operation in the first quarter of next year after trial runs. Its entire output will be supplied to Samsung SDI.

EcoPro BM held a ribbon-cutting ceremony earlier in the day. It said the facility has the world’s largest cathode production capacity.

Last year, EcoPro BM and Samsung SDI built a separate factory in the same industrial complex to produce 36,000 tons of high-nickel cathode, a key component for lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles.

Cathodes determine the capacity and average voltage of the lithium-ion batteries.

EcoPro BM is known for having succeeded in mass producing high-nickel cathode materials with nickel content of over 80 percent. In 2018, it became the first company in the world to apply high-nickel cathodes to EV batteries and commercialize them.

The company announced in December it is spending about 970 billion won (US$672.4 million) over the next four years to build a cathode plant in Hungary, in what would be its first overseas plant.

EcoPro BM has announced a plan to spend 2.8 trillion won by 2026 to expand its foothold into North America and Europe, and aims to secure 480,000 tons of cathode — enough to be used in 6 million EVs — by then.

Source: Yonhap News Agency