South Korean steel producer Posco plans to start construction next month of a demonstration plant in Argentina that will produce lithium products on a trial basis.
Regulatory approvals, including an environmental impact assessment, have put the plant on schedule to begin operations next year. It will allow Posco to decide by the first half of 2021 on plans to build a commercial-scale lithium factory with capacity of 25,000 t/yr, the company said.
Posco agreed last year to buy lithium mining tenements in Argentina from Australia's Galaxy Resources for $280mn. Plans to build a joint-venture cathode materials plant in Chile have been dropped, but Argentina remains part of Posco's plan to capture a 20pc share of the global battery materials market. The company is focusing on battery materials as its core growth business on expectations that demand for electric vehicles will continue to increase.
Posco said that with its lithium production capacity expected to rise to 65,000 t/yr within a few years, it is already in talks with customers on long-term supply deals.
A demonstration plant that extracts lithium from ore started up in 2018, and Posco said it aims to start investment in commercial-scale production in this year's second half. Plans remain on course for a joint venture with Australian mining firm Pilbara Minerals to build a 40,000 t/yr lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate plant in South Korea by late 2020.
Construction of a joint-venture cathode materials plant with Huayou Cobalt in east China's Zhejiang province is scheduled to be completed next month. Posco said certification of such plants normally takes about a year, but it is working to finish the process in half this time so it can begin selling its first product batches next February.
