April 25, 2024

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[THE INVESTOR] POSCO, the world’s fifth-biggest steelmaker by output, has added lithium production to its business portfolio, the company said on April 2. 

This month, POSCO began making lithium hydroxide, a raw material that is used in the production of car batteries. It recently completed building a facility with an annual capacity of 1,500 tons of lithium hydroxide inside its steel mill in Gwangyang, about 420 kilometers southwest of Seoul, the company said in a statement. The move should help the steelmaker diversify its income sources.

“We have stepped-up efforts in the past eight years to produce and commercialize lithium hydroxide, as we see it as a new growth driver. We will continue to locally produce other core materials that have been imported by Korean firms,” POSCO Chairman Kwon Oh-joon said in the statement.  

POSCO plans to sell lithium hydroxide to domestic battery makers, such as Samsung SDI and LG Chem, which have been importing most of the material.     

By Song Seung-hyun and newswires (ssh@heraldcorp.com)