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POSCO Holdings. (Photo=Yonhap News) |
[Alpha Biz= Reporter Kim Jisun] POSCO Holdings has become the first Korean company to complete a commercial lithium hydroxide production plant overseas for electric vehicle battery materials.
This facility, located in Güemes, Salta Province, Argentina, is the first of its kind in Argentina and the largest in South America in terms of single-company production capacity. At an inauguration event on October 24, POSCO announced that the plant will produce up to 25,000 tons of lithium hydroxide annually, enough to supply around 600,000 electric vehicles with battery cathode material, a key EV component.
With this new plant, POSCO Holdings has achieved a combined production capacity of 46,500 tons of lithium hydroxide from both brine and mineral resources, including the 21,500-ton facility already operating in Gwangyang, South Korea. Jun-hyung Kim, POSCO’s Head of Secondary Battery Materials, remarked, “This plant inauguration marks an essential step for POSCO in becoming a global leader in lithium production,” and noted that additional projects are planned to further expand production capabilities.
Since acquiring mining rights in Argentina’s Hombre Muerto salt flat in 2018, POSCO has steadily increased its investments, establishing the local subsidiary "POSCO Argentina." The new facility applies POSCO’s proprietary lithium extraction technology, which enables the recovery and reuse of raw materials, reducing operational costs.
POSCO Holdings is currently investing around $1 billion to build a second-phase plant with a production capacity of 25,000 tons annually, slated for completion in the second half of next year. The company plans to further invest in a third-phase plant to bring the total brine-based lithium production capacity to 100,000 tons per year.
Alphabiz Reporter Kim Jisun(stockmk2020@alphabiz.co.kr)
