POSCO, the South Korean steel-making giant headquartered in Pohang, announced on 14 October that it had begun construction of a high-purity nickel refining plant for secondary batteries at the Gwangyang Steel Works, as per a Japan Metal Daily report.
It is a high-purity nickel refining plant with an annual production capacity of 20,000 tonnes. In the high-purity nickel refining business promoted by POSCO, nickel matte with a nickel purity of 75% is wet-refined to produce high-purity nickel with a purity of 99.9% or higher for secondary batteries. POSCO Group’s SNNC produces nickel matte by smelting and removing ferro nickel from nickel ore. POSCO will refine the nickel matte into high-purity nickel and supply it to secondary battery material makers such as POSCO Chemical.
It may be noted here that POSCO invested in a nickel mine in New Caledonia in 2006. SNNC is producing ferro nickel as a raw material for stainless steel from nickel ore. With this investment, POSCO will be involved in the production of high-purity nickel, which is used as a material for secondary batteries, SteelMint infers.
By 2030, the POSCO Group plans to produce and sell 610,000 tonnes of cathode materials, 320,000 tonnes of anode materials, 300,000 tonnes of lithium, and 220,000 tonnes of nickel in the secondary battery materials’ arena.
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