11.8 billion plus another 6.6 billion! Lithium battery giant SKI is expanding production

On June 29, according to Korean media BusinessKorea, South Korean lithium battery giant SKI has signed an additional US$940 million (approximately RMB 6.643 billion) investment agreement to expand the scale of its lithium battery factory in Georgia, USA . The expanded part is expected to be put into production in 2023.

According to Ofweek Lithium Battery, SKI's factory in Georgia started construction in March 2019. The planned investment at that time was US$1.67 billion (approximately RMB 11.802 billion), with an annual production capacity of 9.8GWh, and is expected to be completed and put into production in 2022.

After the additional investment, the annual production capacity of SKI's battery factory in the United States will reach 21.5GWh by 2023. In addition, it is not ruled out that SKI will continue to make additional investments in the future, and the total production capacity of its US production base is planned to be 55GWh.

Governor Kemp said, “Thanks to SKI’s large-scale investment, Georgia has become the electric vehicle battery center in the southeastern United States. We will establish more cooperative relations with Korean companies in the future.”

It is reported that in terms of customers, the main purpose of SKI's factory in the United States is to provide support for Volkswagen's electric vehicle production base in Tennessee, and the active construction of the second battery factory may indicate that SKI will also supply other OEM customers in the United States.

SKI's production capacity layout

Ofweek Lithium Battery has learned from public information in the domestic and international markets that SKI plans to achieve a lithium battery production capacity of more than 100GWh by 2025 in order to compete with CATL, Panasonic and LG Chem.

According to the plan, SKI has increased its production capacity from 5GWh to 20GWh by the end of 2019, and this figure will rise to 40GWh by the end of 2020, and reach a total production capacity of 100GWh in 2025.

In terms of production bases, SKI has rapidly deployed lithium battery factories in the United States, South Korea, Hungary, China and other places.

SKI's Seosan factory in South Korea currently has a production capacity of 5GWh. The factory was completed and put into use as early as 2012. SKI's Seosan factory is a factory that integrates modern advanced technology. It maximizes production efficiency through automated production lines and can design and produce personalized products according to different customer needs.

The batteries produced by SKI's Seosan plant have been used in electric vehicles of brands such as BAIC, Hyundai, Kia, and Daimler.

As for the American factories, as mentioned above.

SKI's Hungarian lithium battery factory began construction at the end of 2017, with an investment of 800 trillion won (about 4.707 billion yuan) and a production capacity of 7.5GWh.

In March 2019, SKI invested US$859 million (about RMB 6.068 billion) to build its second lithium battery factory in Komárom, Hungary. The factory's initial planned production capacity is 10GWh, but it may be increased to 16GWh in the future. Its purpose is to increase the supply to Volkswagen.

SKI China Changzhou Factory (Beijing Electric Aisite) was put into production at the end of 2019 with a production capacity of 7.5GWh. The project was jointly invested by SKI, BAIC Group and Beijing Electric Control with a total investment of 10 billion yuan.

By the end of this year, SKI's second Chinese factory in Yancheng will be completed with a production capacity of 20GWh.

SKI is also considering investing in Chinese battery maker Huizhou Yiwei Lithium Energy Co., Ltd. and turning the company into a joint venture that would bring 20GWh-25GWh of production capacity.

Looking at SKI's overall layout in the battery field, Kim Jun, CEO of SKI's Energy and Chemical Division, said: "The company will strive to become one of the top three in the battery industry by 2025 by fully enhancing its technological leadership."

High nickel NCM811 conquers the market

In terms of packaging form and technical route, SKI complies with the market mainstream and launches soft-pack high-nickel NCM811 batteries. The latest information shows that among the top 10 power battery monomer energy density installed in China in May, the energy density of the battery cell produced by Nortel AEST is as high as 269.34Wh/Kg, ranking second only to CATL's 279.56Wh/Kg.

Nortel AEST was jointly invested by SKI, BAIC Group and Beijing Electric Control with RMB 10 billion. The first phase of the project invested RMB 5 billion and was completed and put into operation in December 2019. In less than half a year, Nortel AEST ranked in the top 2 in energy density and surpassed LG Chem and Panasonic.

SKI's Changzhou plant mainly produces NCM811 soft-pack batteries, which will provide batteries for BAIC New Energy's high-end brand ARCFOX and can meet the power battery needs of 150,000 electric vehicles.

By the end of 2020, SKI's second Chinese factory in Yancheng, Jiangsu will be completed with a production capacity of 20GWh, mainly supplying Dongfeng Yueda Kia Motors in Yancheng.

In other words, the energy density of SKI's mass-produced soft-pack batteries has reached 270Wh/Kg. According to SKI's previous plan, its positive electrode material system has been upgraded to the NCM 622 system doped with NCM 811, and the negative electrode material will be upgraded from graphite to silicon-carbon negative electrode in 2021-2022. The energy density target for 2020 is 284Wh/kg, and the energy density is expected to reach 314Wh/kg in 2022. In the first quarter of this year, LG Chem surpassed CATL and Panasonic to become the world's largest battery manufacturer in terms of installed capacity. Now, SKI is expanding its production of high-energy-density batteries to compete in the market.

The battle among the world’s leading power battery companies is fierce.