Finnish Minerals Group has taken a significant step towards the establishment of a new cell production plant in the southern Finnish port city of Kotka. The company has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with a potential partner for the project and has begun preparations for the environmental impact assessment (EIA) process. The Finnish Battery Chemicals Oy, a wholly owned subsidiary of Finnish Minerals Group, will conduct the EIA process, and a reasoned conclusion on the EIA report is expected by the summer of 2024.
If the environmental impact assessment is positive, the plant will have a production capacity of either 27 or 40 GWh and will be built in the Keltakallio industrial estate, which has already been offered by the city of Kotka. Finnish Materials is already planning a cathode material factory in the area with Beijing Easpring Material Technology, and the new cell production plant would have a synergy with the factory.
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The implementation variants to be examined in the EIA procedure assume 27 GWh and 40 GWh total capacity per year. According to Finnish Minerals Group, the investment costs for a capacity of ten gigawatt-hours are typically around one billion euros.
Parallel to the EIA, negotiations on the cell factory will continue with the unnamed technology partner. Although the partner has not yet made a final decision on the location of its next cell plant, the Finnish Minerals Group is motivated to work towards getting the investment in Kotka.
This latest endeavor is part of Finnish Minerals Group’s wider efforts to establish several projects in Finland. Last year, the company partnered with Epsilon Advanced Materials to investigate building a production plant for almost 50,000 tons of anode material per year in Vaasa, Finland. In 2021, British chemical company Johnson Matthey announced the construction of a new factory to produce its nickel-rich eLNO cathode materials in Finland as part of a strategic partnership with the Finnish Minerals Group.
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Finnish Minerals Group is committed to ensuring the conditions for the implementation of the project and looking at the plant’s environmental impact. “This is the right time to start looking at the plant’s environmental impact and ensure the conditions for the implementation of the project,” said Matti Hietanen, CEO of Finnish Minerals Group.
