SK Ecoplant Chief Executive Park Kyung-il presents at Korea Investment Week 2023
South Korea’s top waste management company SK Ecoplant Co. is considering building a waste battery preprocessing plant in Kentucky in partnership with Massachusetts-based Ascend Elements, SK Ecoplant Chief Executive Park Kyung-il said on Tuesday.
“We will establish a joint venture with the US battery recycling company Ascend Elements and build a battery preprocessing plant in an area of Kentucky where battery plants are clustered,” Park told Korea Investment Week 2023, hosted by The Korea Economic Daily.
Later, SK Ecoplant toned down his remarks, saying it has no detailed plans yet for building a US plant.
Ascend Elements, founded in 2015, is a battery recycling startup. It extracts rare metals such as nickel and cobalt from discarded lithium-ion batteries. SK Ecoplant has invested a combined $60.8 million in the startup in Series C and D funding between August, 2022 and April this year.
Ascend Elements is building cathode materials plants in Hopkinsville, Kentucky (Courtesy of Ascend Elements)
Last week, Ascend Elements announced it has raised $542 million from equity investors, led by BlackRock, Singapore-based investment firm Temasek and Qatar Investment Authority in Series D funding. Based on the fundraising, the startup is valued at around $2 billion.
The ownership of a joint venture to be established will likely be split 72:25 between SK Ecoplant and Ascend Elements.
If constructed, their waste battery preprocessing plant will be located near Ascend Elements’ cathode factory under construction in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. Ascend Elements will produce precursors and other materials for rechargeable batteries there, enough to power 750,000 electric vehicles a year.
It has received $480 million in US government subsidies to build the cathode plant.
TES (Courtesy of Navis Capital Partners)
“By next year, we will establish our base in the US to expand our waste management from upstream to downstream,” Park said during a presentation for the conference, South Korea’s largest annual investment conference. It will run through Sept. 15.
Upstream means waste recycling and converting waste into energy. Downstream refers to waste incineration and landfill.
SK Ecoplant made inroads into the waste management industry in 2020 through the purchase of South Korea’s largest waste treatment company EMC Holdings Co.
Park said the company has spent a total of 4.4 trillion won ($3.3 billion) to purchase about 20 waste incineration and recycling companies, as well as relevant eco-friendly companies in the past three years.
It is building a battery preprocessing plant in Rotterdam, the Netherlands and is preparing to operate a battery recycling facility for TES, its Singapore-based subsidiary, Park added.
CONTROLLING STAKE IN MALAYSIA-BASED COMPANY
Park also disclosed the company’s plan to take an additional stake in Malaysia’s first integrated waste management company Cenviro.
Last year, it acquired a 30% stake in Cenviro from the Malaysian government’s sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional Berhad. Khazanah holds the remaining 70% stake in Cenviro.
“We plan to take a controlling stake in Cenviro sooner than later. We will expand our environmental business into Indonesia, Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries, based on our eco-friendly technologies and experience built in Korea,” Park said.
SK Ecoplant CEO Park Kyung-il at Korea Investment Week 2023 on Sept. 12
This year, environmental and energy businesses are expected to make up half of SK Ecoplant’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization, sharply up from 9% in 2020, Park said.
At home, SK Ecoplant will build a rechargeable battery recycling facility in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, by 2026.
“As we have successfully transformed into an eco-friendly company, our ultimate goal is to enter the fuel cell-based water electrolysis market and become a green hydrogen supplier,” Park noted.
Water electrolysis technology is used to produce high-purity hydrogen from water without emitting greenhouse gases.
Write to Ye-Jin Jun at ace@hankyung.com
Yeonhee Kim edited this article.
