South Korea’s Posco Chemical Company is building a US$327m electric vehicle (EV) battery cathode plant in Quebec City in partnership with General Motors Company.
The two companies are setting up a joint venture, to be called Ultium CAM (Cathode Active Materials), with Posco Chemical owning 85% of the equity and GM the remaining 15%.
This follows a preliminary agreement signed by the two companies in late 2021, when the two companies undertook to create a joint venture in North America for the production of cathode active materials, a critical component of electric vehicle batteries.
Construction of a new joint venture plant in Quebec City begins in August. The plant will have capacity to produce 30,000 tons of battery materials per year. It is scheduled to start operations in the second half of 2024 – mainly to supply GM’s US-based Ultium Cells battery joint venture with South Korea’s LG Energy Solution.
Posco Chemical said it will also establish a new holding company in Canada for its North American investments, to be called Posco Chemical Canada.