Lotte Energy Materials Corp., formerly Iljin Materials Co., will build a smart factory in Catalonia, Spain to produce 30,000 tons of high-end copper foil annually by 2025.
The South Korean battery materials company has upped the factory’s production capacity by 5,000 tons from its original plan to meet growing copper foil demand from its customers in Europe, it said in a regulatory filing on Monday.
With the revised capacity, Lotte Energy Materials will spend 560 billion won ($429.5 million), 60 billion won more than the previous investment plan, to complete the factory by 2025.
The company in May last year announced to complete the factory by 2024, which is the first phase of its grand goal to churn out 100,000 tons of elecfoil in Europe.
The original plan was initiated by Iljin Materials after the Korean copper foil maker joined the Future Fast Forward project led by Volkswagen Group to turn Spain into a European E-mobility hub earlier last year.
This is the only Korean battery materials company joining the project, which is expected to pave the way for fast inroads into Europe.
Iljin Materials was acquired by Lotte Chemical Corp. late last year, and the company was renamed Lotte Energy Materials in March of this year.
Elecfoil is a copper foil, which is a key anode material for lithium-ion batteries in EVs and energy storage systems.
The company said last September that it had developed a new ultra-high tensile elecfoil, which can significantly improve the mileage, power and stability of EVs.
SPAIN AS A EUROPEAN ELECFOIL HUB
Lotte Energy Materials currently produces 60,000 tons of copper foil in total from its factories in Iksan, North Jeolla Province at home (20,000 tons) and Kuching, the capital of the state of Sarawak in Malaysia (40,000 tons).
The company in earlier July unveiled a new goal to ramp up its global copper foil production capacity to 240,000 tons by 2028 to become the world leader in the global copper market with a 30% share.
The global copper foil market was forecast to grow to 2.23 million tons by 2030, a fourfold increase from the current 500,000 tons, Lotte Energy Materials’ Chief Executive Kim Yeon-seop said last month.
The company bets big on high-end elecfoil for its lead in the market, while expecting North America and Europe would be responsible for more than half of its global elecfoil output by 2028.
CEO Kim on Monday reaffirmed that Spain will serve as the company's European base in response to the European Union’s Critical Raw Materials Act while meeting the demands of local customers and the anticipated growth in high-end copper foil demand.
The new copper foil factory in Catalonia will be built on a land of 440,500 square meters, an area equivalent to 62 soccer fields, which can later be fit with more fab lines that can churn out 100,000 tons of high-end copper foil.
The company will secure an additional 500,000-square-meter site for solar energy facilities near the copper foil factory later.
Catalonia’s Mediterranean climate is perfect for production of high-end copper foil with a small risk of quality degradation, according to the company. The region’s stable supply of renewable energy-based electricity also meets the EU’s RE100 standard.
The Spain government has pledged various incentives to Lotte Energy Materials on expectations that the Korean battery materials’ smart factory would create hundreds of jobs in the region.
Lotte Energy Materials shares ended up 1.2% at 51,900 won on Monday.
