South Korea’s POSCO Group expects to spend Won 121 trillion ($92.6 billion), both locally and globally, by 2030 on building its eco-friendly materials competitiveness, it said July 3, earmarking Won 73 trillion for its domestic businesses.
The group “will invest intensively in the steel business, which is the basis and competitiveness of the group, as well as the secondary battery material business that will lead future new mobility and the hydrogen business for the group’s “2050 carbon neutral” goal,” it said.
The group’s steelmaking unit, POSCO, aims to start up a new electric arc furnace at its Gwangyang steelworks from the end-2025 to 2026 with a production capacity of 2.5 million mt/year of crude steel.
To supply the new and future EAFs, sister company POSCO International aims to have 500,000 mt/year of scrap supply capacity in place by 2025.
Overseas, POSCO and India’s Adani Group are considering building a “green” integrated steel mill at Mundra, Gujarat.
In April, POSCO announced plans to spend Won 4.4 trillion over the next 10 years at Gwangyang to build an industrial complex that will include battery materials and hydrogen.
Also in April, group company POSCO Holdings and Japan’s Honda Motor joined forces to build up their supply of battery materials for electric vehicles, encompassing the supply of cathode and anode materials, and technical exchanges on future battery materials.
More immediately, for its battery materials business, POSCO Pilbara Lithium Solution Co. Ltd., a joint venture with Australia’s Pilbara Minerals, is expected to start up the first line of its 43,000 mt/year lithium hydroxide monohydrate plant at Gwangyang from late-2023.
As for hydrogen, in June, Oman awarded a project to manufacture 220,000 mt/year of green hydrogen and 1.2 million mt/year of green ammonia to a consortium which included POSCO and France’s Engie.
Platts assessed seaborne lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide at $43,800/mt CIF North Asia and $47,000/mt CIF North Asia, respectively, on June 30, both unchanged from the previous session, data from S&P Global Commodity Insights showed.
Author: Clement Choo
