The battery cell manufacturer SK Innovation to split its battery and petroleum divisions into two new entities to improve its growth.
The head of strategy at SK Innovation, Kim Cheol-joong said:
“We plan for the new battery affiliate to become the third largest player in the global electric vehicle (EV) battery market in 2022, based on (annual) sales volume.”
SKI’s head of battery business support Yoon Hyung-jo said:
“The book order of 1 terawatt is equal to 13 trillion won in revenue. There were uncertainties but these have been resolved, and therefore we expect new orders to materialise.”
The SK affiliate expects the battery business will turn to a profit on an annual basis in 2022, and starting 2025 be able to maintain a high single digit operating margin. SKI’s battery division’s operating loss came to 97.9 billion won for the second quarter of this year.
The official added that SK Battery’s order backlog stands at 1,000 gigawatt-hours, which is worth 130 trillion won. To meet the demand, SK Battery plans to increase its annual production capacity to 85 GWh in 2023, 200 GWh in 200 and 500 GWh in 2030. This ambitious expansion plan requires 2 trillion to 3 trillion won a year, and taking SK Battery public and selling its shares would provide sufficient capital.
The company also said that it will incubate a battery metal recycling business as the new growth engine, with plans to retrieve nickel, cobalt and manganese from defective batteries generated from its production lines and spent electric vehicle batteries, which will materialise en masse starting 2025.
