POSCO Chairman Choi Jeong-woo.

Under the stewardship of Chairman Choi Jeong-woo, POSCO is accelerating efforts to nurture the lithium business, one axis of the steelmaker’s future material businesses. While he was in charge of POSCO KEMTECH for four months from February this year, the subsidiary of POSCO entered the negative electrode, premium needle coke, and other carbon material businesses.

In his inaugural speech as POSCO chairman in late July, Choi said the material business unit would integrate the negative electrode and positive electrode businesses. Chairman Choi unveiled a plan to make POSCO rise to a top tier company in the energy material sector by accelerating the commercialization of lithium and synthetic graphite.

POSCO said on Aug. 27 that it signed a contract to buy the mining rights of a salt lake mine in Salardel Hombre Muerto, Argentina, from the Australian resources developer Galaxy Resources to secure lithium. The price of the acquisition stands at $280 million. The northern part of the salt lake covers 17,500 ha, about one-third of the size of Seoul. The lake is estimated to contain salt water capable of producing 25,000 tons of lithium per annum for 20 years.

This past February, POSCO reached a long-term deal to buy lithium concentrate from Pilbara Mineral that is capable of producing 30,000 tons of lithium yearly.
With the latest acquisition of the salt lake mine, POSCO is now able to secure a stable supply of the raw materials of lithium. POSCO is expected to produce 55,000 tons of lithium annually starting 2021.

POSCO will complete a process of acquiring the mining rights of the salt lake this year. The Korean steelmaker plans to obtain permission to build a lithium plant on site. The plant, which will employ lithium extraction technology developed by POSCO, is to mass produce lithium in 2021. Lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate, being produced in Argentina, are supplied to the positive electrode maker POSCO ESM. With the supplying of the negative electrode to POSCO KEMTECH, POSCO Group is expected to secure a competitive edge in the secondary battery material business sector.

A general view of a salt lake mine in Salardel Hombre Muerto, Argentina. (Photos: POSCO)

Earlier, POSCO said the steelmaker plans to pour 113 billion won in a project to build a positive electrode plant. The move is designed to strengthen the material business POSCO, which it aims to nurture as a future growth engine.

POSCO ESM, a subsidiary of POSCO, signed a deal with the Gwangang Bay Free Economic Zone (GBFEZ) Authority on May 29 to buy a 165,287 square-meter site for a positive electrode plant.

POSCO ESM plans to set up a positive electrode plant capable of producing 6,000 tons annually by next year and expand its annual production capacity to 50,000 ton by 2022. When the expansion is completed, the plant is forecast to post more than 2 trillion won in annual sales and create more than 1,000 jobs.

POSCO ESM’s annual positive electrode production capacity, including that of the Gumi plant’s production capacity of 12,000 tons, is predicted to rise to 62,000 tons by 2022, which is equivalent to those producing 1 million EV units. The company also plans to build another plant capable of producing 20,000 tons of nickel at a second battery material complex in Gwangyang.

The global positive electron market is forecast to jump to 860,000 tons by 2020, a more than four-fold surge from 210,000 tons in 2016 on the back of a rise in the demand for EVs, energy storage systems and IT batteries.