EV battery materials manufacturing plant to be built in Loyalist Township

Loyalist Township and Eastern Ontario are receiving an economic boost as an industrial-scale manufacturing plant is set to be built there.

The plant will be dedicated to manufacturing cathode active materials and precursor cathode active materials. The components are critical in the production of EV batteries.

Umicore N.V., a Belgian multinational circular materials technology company will build a near-carbon-neutral facility in Loyalist Township, investing more than a billion dollars in the process.

“Today’s announcement is about creating jobs, cutting pollution, and building a stronger, cleaner economy for Canadians. Umicore’s decision 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,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Wednesday.

“Ontario has 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,” said Mathias Miedreich, chief executive of Umicore.

“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,” he added.

The province says that at full production, the plant will produce annual cathode material volumes sufficient to manufacture batteries for one million battery-electric vehicles or “almost 20 per cent of all North American EV production at the end of the decade.”

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“This important investment by Umicore will turn Ontario into a North American leader in this high-value segment of the EV supply chain and further connect Northern Ontario’s mineral sector to EV manufacturing in the south,” said Vic Fedeli, Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade.

“With recent success attracting major investments to the province, our government is staking Ontario’s claim to developing and building the batteries that will power vehicles of the future.”

Umicore’s plant will be running 100 per cent on renewable energy from the start. It would be the first of its kind industrial-scale facility that combines the production of precursor cathode active materials and cathode active materials at the same facility.

Once constructed, the facility will span 350 acres. Construction is set to begin in 2023 and should be completed by the end of 2025.