SK Innovation secures stable source of minerals for battery production

By Lim Chang-won Posted : February 21, 2018, 09:44 Updated : February 21, 2018, 09:44

[Courtesy of SK Innovation]



SEOUL, Feb. 21 (Aju News) -- SK Innovation has secured a stable source of crucial minerals used to produce electric vehicle batteries with a commodity off-take agreement with Australian Mines which runs cobalt and nickel mines at Sconi in Queensland.

Under the agreement, which is for an initial period of 7 years and extendable for six years, SK Innovation will be supplied with 12,000 tons of cobalt and 60,000 tons of nickel every year from 2020, the subsidiary of South Korea's SK Group said Wednesday.

The supply of cobalt from Australia would account for 90 percent of SK Innovation's total needs. SK Innovation said cobalt prices have been rising because of an unstable political situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the world's biggest cobalt supplier.

In November last year, SK Innovation, which has a battery factory in the southwestern county of Seosan, selected Hungary as the venue for its first overseas battery plant to meet surging demands for electric vehicles in Europe. The plant will be built in the northern Hungarian city of Komarom, home to Germany carmaker Audi and Japan's Suzuki.

Domestic rivals LG Chem and Samsung SDI will have EV battery plants in Poland and Hungary respectively as China builds barriers to protect its battery industry.

SK Innovation, which has diversified its business portfolio to nurture battery and chemical businesses, aims to secure 30 percent of the global battery market by 2025 by developing batteries that would allow an electric vehicle to travel more than 500 kilometers (310 miles) on a single charge by 2018 and 700 kilometers by early 2020.

 
기사 이미지 확대 보기
닫기