This photo, provided by Lotte Energy Materials Corp. on Aug. 7, 2023, shows a rendering of the site of what will be its second overseas copper foil manufacturing plant, in Mont-roig del Camp in Catalonia, in northeastern Spain.
SEOUL, Aug. 7 (Korea Bizwire) — Lotte Energy Materials Corp. said Monday it is spending 560 billion won (US$431 million) to build a factory in Spain to produce battery-grade copper foil for use in electric vehicle cells.
The factory will be located in Mont-roig del Camp, a town in Catalonia in northeastern Spain, and built with the capacity to annually produce 30,000 tons of high-end copper foil, a key secondary battery material, the unit of South Korea’s chemicals producer Lotte Chemical Corp. said.
Site development work for the factory will begin in the second half of this year, with the aim of completing construction by 2025, the company said.
This will be Lotte Energy Materials’ second overseas factory after its first one in Malaysia, and will be subject to further expansion going forward, it said.
The site it has secured in Spain is large enough to build a manufacturing facility capable of producing 100,000 tons of copper foil, the company added.
Lotte Energy Materials, formerly Iljin Materials Co., set sail under its new name in March after Lotte Chemical announced a plan to take over the company last year as its wholly-owned subsidiary.
Lotte Energy Materials produces some 60,000 tons of copper foil in its Iksan plant in South Korea, 170 kilometers south of Seoul, and 40,000 tons from its Malaysian plant that is undergoing expansion to boost its capacity by another 20,000 tons by the end of this year.
Lotte Energy Materials said it aims to increase its total copper foil production to 240,000 tons a year by 2028, aiming to achieve a 30 percent market share in the high-end copper foil industry.
(Yonhap)
