Umicore to build battery materials plant in Ontario

Umicore plans to build a manufacturing facility near Kingston, Ontario, that could begin producing battery cathode precursor materials and cathode active battery materials by the end of 2025, a move that will further the Canadian province's goal of establishing a local electric vehicle supply chain, the company and government officials said July 13.

"Canada and the Ontario province have all it takes for Umicore to establish a full-fledged, sustainable supply chain for battery materials, all the way from the mine right to the end-market of electric vehicles," Umicore CEO Mathias Miedreich said in a statement.

The new plant will represent a key expansion for Umicore, a global metals and materials technology company, into North America's lithium-ion battery and EV industries.

"Once the key customer contracts are in place, this expansion in North America would complete our global rollout of regional supply chains for our automotive and battery cell customers to now three continents," Miedreich added.

Umicore said the Ontario facility would be the first of its kind in North America to produce both precursor and cathode active materials at an industrial scale. The facility will also be powered fully by renewable energy, it added.

Construction of the plant is expected to begin in 2023. By the end of the decade, it could potentially have an annual production capacity to power about 1 million EVs, Umicore added.

Umicore said it will also explore opportunities for metals refining and battery recycling in North America to offer its customers in the region "secure and circular access to critical battery materials."

Within the battery industry, the Belgium-based company currently operates a cathode precursor and cobalt refining plant in Finland and battery materials plants in Poland, China and South Korea.

"For Umicore, this investment [in Ontario] represents the final step in establishing a truly global production presence with battery material value chains that are regionally fully integrated to support its customers in their fast transformation towards sustainable electric mobility," it said.

Partnership with Canada

In addition to plans to construct the plant, Umicore and the Canadian government also jointly announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding to finalize the support application for the project under the country's Strategic Innovation Fund. The fund is a national program that "supports large-scale, transformative and collaborative projects that help position Canada to prosper in the global knowledge-based economy," according to the Canadian government's website.

Canadian officials said Umicore's plant will complete a "missing link" in Canada's battery value chain between upstream battery metals mining and downstream battery and EV manufacturing, all of which are currently present or are being developed in the country.

"Umicore's intention to establish its new facility in Loyalist Township is another major step forward as we make Canada a global leader in producing electric vehicles from minerals to manufacturing," Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in the joint statement. "This new facility will play an important role in Canada's clean automotive sector well into the future."

Vic Fedeli, Ontario's minister of economic development, job creation and trade, said in a March interview with S&P Global Commodity Insights that Ontario's government has worked since 2020 to attract EV-related investment to the province.

"We've got the automotive OEMs covered, we've got the investment in the [Stellantis-LGES] battery manufacturing plant, an investment in green steel [at ArcelorMittal Dofasco], and we put millions into a program called the Ontario Automotive Modernization Program," he said at the time.

Earlier this year, automaker Stellantis and lithium-ion battery developer LG Energy Solution said they would jointly build Canada's first large-scale EV battery manufacturing facility in Windsor, Ontario.

Also, General Motors said in April it would launch Canada's first full-scale commercial EV manufacturing hub at its CAMI automotive assembly plant in Ingersoll, Ontario.

Meanwhile, Northern Ontario's "ring of fire" region represents a major focus area for critical mineral sourcing, with the potential to produce cobalt, nickel, copper, platinum and palladium.