LG Chem has reportedly invested KRW1 billion ($897,000) to acquire a 10% stake in South Korean nickel sulfate supplier company Kemco, with the aim of boosting its lithium-ion battery business for the electric vehicles market.
The South Korean tech firm will enter the batteries raw material business in the new year, the Maeil Business Newspaper quoted an unnamed LG Chem source as saying.
According to media reports, Kemco will start the production of nickel sulfate at a new factory with an annual capacity of 20,000 tons in March 2018, rising to an 80,000 tons target in 2019.
The move comes as South Korea is backing plans by the country’s battery giants to inject a total of KRW2.3 trillion into the sector over the next three years, to expand production and challenge China’s increasing dominance of the market.
LG Chem and battery peers Samsung SDI and SK Innovation Companies held talks with the South Korean government recently in response to Chinese sanctions the firms say effectively block the use of South Korean batteries in electric vehicles in China.
In July, BBB reported the three leading Korean battery makers were responding to the short supply of another key energy metal, cobalt, by developing new batteries that can reduce the use of the metal.
Kang Chang-beom, an executive in LG Chem’s battery business strategy division, said the firm was “developing a new lithium-ion battery with a reduced portion of cobalt in response to the price rise of the energy metal”.
Meanwhile, LG Chem is in the process of building an EV battery manufacturing plant in Wroclaw, Poland.
