• Considering expanding production capacity to 250,000 tons by 2025 through additional overseas investments in Europe and the United States

• Poland, which has excellent customer accessibility, considered as the priority candidate site for 50,000 ton expansion in 2024

SKC (President: Lee Wan-jae) plans to expand its production capacity of copper foil, a core material for batteries for electric vehicles, to more than 200,000 tons by 2025. To achieve this goal, the company will make additional investments in Europe and the US, where there are many secondary battery customers. The goal is to confirm a site in Europe and begin construction within this year.

On May 25, the Board of Directors of SK nexilis, SKC’s investing company in copper foil manufacturing, decided to build a copper foil plant for secondary batteries in Europe with an annual capacity of 50,000 tons. They also decided to expand its total production capacity to more than 200,000 tons by 2025, through continuous investment in the future.

In Europe, Poland is considered as a priority region for entrance into Europe. SK nexilis will quickly conclude the negotiation with the Polish government for investment conditions and officially decide on the site. Poland offers excellent customer access. Four global major secondary battery manufacturers are located in Poland or neighboring countries. It also offers excellent scalability since many available sites are larger than its Malaysian factory.

In particular, SKC can expect full implementation of RE100 because it can secure the large-scale power required for copper foil manufacturing with new and renewable energy. SKC, which has decided to implement RE100 for the first time in the industry at its Malaysian factory, announced that its plan to implement RE100 for subsequent investments. When it fully implements RE100 in the European factory, SKC’s overall RE100 implementation level in the copper foil business will increase to 70%.

SK nexilis will begin preliminary preparations, such as design and licensing, as soon as it determines the area for the factory. The goal is to start construction this year and complete it by 2024. In that case, SKC’s total production capacity for the copper foil business will be 1,520,000 tons.

SK nexilis is pushing ahead with capacity expansion quickly because demand is growing more rapidly than expected. According to SNE Research, the electric vehicle battery market is expected to grow by an annual average of 38% by 2025. As such, SK nexilis has been operating its Jeongeup Factory at 100% since last year. It pulled the schedule for commercial production of Factory 5 by about six months from early next year, in order to expand the supply. It also plans to accelerate commercial production of Factory 6, which is currently under construction.

“SK nexilis is proud to have the world’s best technology in manufacturing copper foil for batteries and intends to become the global no. 1 in both technology and production capacity by expanding production capacity to more than 20,000 tons, which will be the world’s largest, by 2025. We are also considering further expansion of production capacity to 250,000 by 2025,” an SKC official said.

[SK nexilis' Jeongeup Factory viewed from the sky. The gray buildings are Factories 5 and 6.]

[View of SK nexilis' Jeongeup Factory]

[Copper foil product being manufactured by SK nexilis]