- Home
- NEWSROOM
NEWSROOM
Check out the latest POSCO FUTURE M news and videos.
POSCO Chemical acquires a stake in a Chinese spherical graphite manufacturing company for anodes, spurring efforts to secure competitiveness in raw material acquisition
2021.09.09
* Qingdao Zhongshuo (based in Pingdu City, Shandong Province, China):
Equipped with an annual production capacity of 25,000 tons of spherical graphite,
Qingdao Zhongshuo is a subsidiary of China’s largest graphite raw material specialist, Haida, who possesses a number of graphite mines and processing plants. Spherical graphite is an intermediate raw material made by processing graphite ore into a shape that is suitable for manufacturing high-quality anodes, for which it goes through a process of rounding graphite particles and removing impurities.
Anodes play a role in storing lithium ions for battery charge, and as such, securing anodes that have a uniform and consistent quality from as early as the raw material processing stage has an important effect on the battery charging speed and lifespan.
POSCO Chemical, South Korea’s only company capable of producing both cathode and anode materials, has been making efforts to expand its client base and develop anode technologies, such as independently developing the low-expansion anodes for batteries that are used in high-performance electric vehicle batteries.
Low-expansion anodes combine the advantages of natural graphite anodes and artificial graphite anode materials used in batteries. They have a material structure whereby they have a high energy storage capacity characteristic of natural graphite while having a long lifespan and a fast recharge speed like artificial graphite.
Having entered the anode business in 2010 and succeeded in localizing it for the first time in South Korea, POSCO Chemical is currently increasing its market share by securing the big three South Korea battery companies as well as Ultium Cells in the U.S. as clients.
According to data from market research firm SNE Research, the global consumption of anodes is expected to grow from 273,000 tons in 2020 to 2,054,000 tons in 2030 due to the rapid growth of the electric vehicles market at an average annual growth rate of more than 22%.
With this investment, POSCO Chemical has established a value chain for its anode business covering raw material mining, intermediate raw material acquisition and material production, thereby securing the steady supply of raw material for anodes. The company then plans to use this to expand its annual production capacity for anodes to 172,000 tons in 2025 and 260,000 tons in 2030.
Meanwhile, POSCO Chemical also started localizing pitch production used for anode coating in August. POSCO has been making group-wide efforts to secure raw materials, such as acquiring a 15% stake in the Black Rock Mining company this past January, which owns a graphite mine in Tanzania.
In addition, as for its cathode business, POSCO Chemical plans to complete the construction of a plant in Gwangyang with an annual capacity of 100,000 tons by 2022 and to also construct a plant in Pohang with an annual production capacity of 60,000 tons. Moreover, the company also plans to establish production bases in China, the U.S. and the E.U., where demand for electric vehicles is rapidly increasing, and to secure a stable global supply chain.
-
Spherical graphite plant of Qingdao Zhongshuo, which POSCO Chemical has decided to take overs its shares