POSCO Chairman Choi Jeong-woo. (Photo: POSCO)

POSCO CHEMTECH, POSCO Group’s subsidiary specializing in anode materials for secondary batteries, will change its name to POSCO Chemical when shareholders meet in March.

The name change may be construed as POSCO Group’s intention to shore up its position as the group’s representative chemical/carbon material unit and expand investments in connection with POSCO CHEMTECH’s merger with POSCO ESM.

Business sources familiar with the matter said on Jan. 24 that POSCO Chairman Choi Jeong-woo toured POSCO CHEMTECH headquarters in Pohang, and held business briefing sessions in which he decided to change its name to POSCO Chemical to ramp up a leadership in the secondary battery material field. POSCO CHEMTECH’s board of directors’ meeting will be held in February to approve the name change, and it will be also submitted for approval to a shareholders’ meeting the following month.

POSCO has a 60 percent stake in POSCO CHEMTECH.

POSCO Refractories & Environment, which specializes in refractory and shaft tunnel, changed its name to the current name POSCO CHEMTECH in 2010 as the company entered the chemical business.

Changing its name from POSCO CHEMTECH, a combination of chemical and technology, to POSCO Chemical, is an indication of the company’s vision of walking shoulder-to-shoulder with conventional chemical juggernauts.

Under the stewardship of Chairman Choi, POSCO CHEMTECH is emerging as a major subsidiary in the future new industry sectors. POSCO CHEMTECH plans to invest to expand an anode material plant in Sejong with the goal of raising its production capacity from the current 24,000 tons to 40,000 tons, an equivalent to supplying some 2,7 million, 30kW EV battery units, by 2021.

The name change will come in the run-up to POSCO CHEMTECH’s merger with POSCO ESM, scheduled for Apr. 1.

The merger is designed to have synergetic effects such as unit cost reduction, management rationalization, integrated marketing, and joint R&D with positive electrode and anode electrode business segments, to be placed under the same roof.

POSCO ESM plans to raise its positive electrode production capacity from current 9,000 tons to 57,000 tons annually by 2022 to meet rising demand. POSCO CHEMTECH plans to hire the manpower necessary for R&D and facility expansion after the inauguration of the new corporate entity and POSCO CHEMTECH’s merger with POSCO ESM.

Chairman Choi is concentrating on efforts to explore future new growth engine businesses such as secondary battery materials on top of the strengthening of the competitiveness of the existing steel and non-steel businesses. He strives to integrate positive electrode and anode electrode businesses and establish a secondary battery integrated research institute.

 
He has already set a goal of raising POSCO’s share in the secondary battery material sector to 20 percent and sales to 17 trillion won by 2023. To this end, a combined 10 trillion won will be channeled in the secondary battery material segment.

In his first reshuffle, Chairman Choi introduced the New Growth Business Division charged with secondary battery materials as a core growth axis and appointed an outside expert, ex-president Oh Kyu-seok of Daelim Industrial to head the division.

Under the jurisdiction of the division, there are three offices, including the Secondary Battery Material Business Office and the Industry, Academia and Research Institute Collaboration Office. A think-tank group of 250 experts has been established.

The move may be construed as POSCO Group’s scheme to preoccupy the secondary battery material sector to brace for a rising demand for EVs, ESS and mobile gadgets.