NEO Battery Materials – a Vancouver-based company focused on lithium-ion battery materials for electric vehicle and energy storage application – has announced that it has completed a contract for the commercial plant’s construction, design, and permits with an architectural firm and has furthermore secured an engineering design contract for the respective plant.
Concerning the Company’s 2.5-acre commercial plant located in Gyeonggi Province’s Oseong International Investment Zone, NEO Battery Materials has completed a contract with a South Korean-based architecture firm that will be responsible for the plant’s construction, architectural design, and construction-related permits. The location of the Oseong Zone is highly advantageous with regards to logistics and the battery supply chain, as NEO’s commercial plant will be in proximity to large battery manufacturers such as LG Energy Solution and Samsung SDI.
As announced, the first phase of the commercial plant will possess an initial annual capacity of producing 240 tons of NBMSiDE, and the facility will be built as a 4-story office building with additional space that can accommodate for production expansion of 1,800 tons of the Company’s anode material for the subsequent phase. The necessary construction-related permit and approval process will be simultaneously undertaken, and this process is expected to take approximately two months to complete.
To optimize the process design for manufacturing NBMSiDE, NEO has been closely collaborating and working with the engineering firm’s principal engineer over the past year. The Company will now advance to the detailed process design for the production lines and will proceed with early orders of components that have long lead times for the commercial plant. Through a structured execution plan of performing procurement and construction processes one after another, NEO expects to achieve the initial commission of the Commercial Plant by the first half of next year.
Mr. Spencer Huh, President and CEO of NEO, commented, “The ongoing activities related to the construction of our Commercial Plant are being undertaken in both an efficient and timely fashion. By teaming up with richly experienced architects and engineers, we have greater confidence and strengthened visibility to expedite our commercialization process.”
“For the meantime, with strategic advisors in South Korea, we are currently working on pursuing strategic investments and communicating with the respective companies and investors to finance the construction of commercial plant mainly through our wholly-owned subsidiary, NBM Korea Ltd. We deem that this pathway will protect and add to NEO’s shareholders’ value in both the short- and long-run,” added Mr. Huh.