Umicore held today in Jiangmen (China) the ground-breaking ceremony for its greenfield production site for cathode materials used in Li-Ion rechargeable batteries. The new site will be close to Umicore’s existing cathode materials production plant in Jiangmen and is part of the investment programme that was announced on 8 May 2017. It will provide Umicore additional space to significantly increase its production of NMC (nickel-manganese-cobalt) cathode materials for electrified vehicles to meet growing customer demand. Global demand is increasing fast with demand for Umicore’s NMC materials significantly outpacing the market.
Marc Grynberg, CEO of Umicore, commented: “We are committed to supporting the rapid growth of our customers with significant investments close to their production sites. It is rewarding to see confirmation of our leadership in clean mobility materials and we are excited about the prospects for our business.”
Note to editors
Umicore announced an investment programme of € 300 million between 2017 and 2019 to further increase its production of NMC cathode materials for lithium-ion rechargeable batteries. This programme entails further investments in Cheonan (South Korea) and Jiangmen (China). Combined with the € 160 million investment announced in 2016, this will result in a more than six-fold increase in total capacity by 2020 compared to the levels of 2015.
