Lays out Investment Plan in Media Day Event
EcoPro BM will invest about 970 billion won in Debrecen, Hungary’s second-largest city, to expand its cathode material factory, the company announced in an EcoOro BM European Investment Media Day event organized by the Hungarian Investment Promotion Agency on Dec. 8.
The company will secure a capacity to produce 108,000 tons of cathode materials annually, an amount that can be used to produce batteries for 1.35 million units of electric vehicles.
At a CEO IR road show in November, EcoPro BM laid out a plan to invest a total of 2.8 trillion won in Korea, North America, and Europe by 2026 to secure an annual cathode material production capacity of about 480,000 tons, which can produce batteries to 6 million units of electric vehicles.
EcoPro BM’s plan is to start operations of its first plant in the second half of 2024 and the second plant in the second half of 2025. This is expected to create up to 630 new jobs.
EcoPro BM specializes in cathode materials, which hold the key to the performance of electric vehicle batteries. In 2008, it succeeded in mass-producing high-nickel NCA cathode materials with nickel content of more than 80 percent for the first time in Korea. In 2018, it commercialized the world’s first high-nickel NCM cathode material. Currently, it produces 95,000 tons of cathode materials annually in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, and Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province in Korea.