Frankfurt, November 2, 2021
AMG’s Supervisory Board approved the construction of the first module of a battery grade lithium hydroxide upgrader in Bitterfeld, Germany in its meeting on October 27, 2021. The total expenditure of $120 million includes the infrastructure necessary to support the next four modules. Commissioning of the facility will commence in the third quarter of 2023.
In addition, AMG announced that “Spodumene 1+” will increase Brazil’s spodumene production by 40,000 tons. The project is currently in detailed engineering and commissioning is scheduled to start in the second quarter of 2023.
“With this approval, we made another important step towards our goal to provide battery grade lithium hydroxide to the European battery industry as preferred supplier”, says Stefan Scherer, CEO of AMG Lithium GmbH. “We expect the start of construction in Q1 2022 after receiving the building permit from the Construction Office in Bitterfeld,” he added.
These AMG’s Clean Energy Materials segment strategic projects are advancing as planned. Each of these projects is oriented toward growing AMG’s production of electricity storage materials and/or increasing our footprint in the circular economy, and each of these projects – the battery grade lithium hydroxide upgrader in Germany, Spodumene 1+ in Brazil, and the second spent catalyst recycling facility for vanadium in the US – will significantly enhance AMG’s profitability and contribute to meeting long-term goals.
AMG has also met the spodumene production cost and yield in Brazil that was targeted at the time of the project decision. In transitioning into a high growth company through projects of this kind, execution capability is a critical success factor. All of these investments are consistent with AMG’s CO2 reduction strategy. The Enabling CO2 Reduction Portfolio (ECO2RP) in 2021 will substantially outperform the 2020 CO2 enabled reduction.
