The South Korean company Lotte Energy Materials will invest some 392 million euros in opening its new factory in Spain to produce copper sheets used in electric car batteries, as detailed by the company.
Lotte Chemicals acquired Iljin Materials, who first reported the investment, for around 1.8 billion euros last September. The factory will be located in Mont-roig del Camp (Tarragona) and will have the capacity to produce 30,000 tons of high-end copper foil annually, a key secondary material for batteries and would be complementary to what Iljin de 600 million euros.
The opening in Spain will be the second located abroad by Lotte. The first one they opened away from South Korea was in Malaysia. Construction work in Tarragona is expected to start during the second half of this year and be completed in 2025.
The land, which has already been acquired in Spain, would be large enough to produce about 100,000 tons of copper sheets, although the current estimate is that it will produce about 30,000 tons, according to the South Korean agency Yonhap.
Lotte Energy Materials produces some 60,000 tonnes of copper sheets at its Iksan plant in South Korea and 40,000 tonnes at its Malaysian plant, which is expanding to increase capacity by another 20,000 tonnes by the end of this year.
Thanks to its plant in Spain, the company plans to increase its production to 240,000 tons per year by 2028 and thus achieve a 30% market share of the copper sheet industry.
