Canada to give Umicore up to C$1bn for new battery components plant

Canada and the province of Ontario will give up to C$1 billion to a unit of Belgium’s Umicore to help it build a plant that will produce components for electric vehicle batteries, Ottawa said on Monday.

The facility, in the Ontario town of Loyalist Township, will manufacture cathode active materials and precursor cathode active materials, federal Innovation Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said in a statement.

The plant – the first of its kind in North America – will initially employ 600 people and have a battery materials production capacity of 35 gigawatt hours annually.

Canada, home to a large mining sector for minerals such as lithium, nickel and cobalt, wants to woo firms involved in all levels of the electric vehicle (EV) supply chain via a multibillion-dollar green technology.

The Umicore plant is due to be built in stages and could be worth C$2.7 billion when fully completed. Canada will invest up to C$551.3 billion with Ontario adding up to C$424.6 billion.

The full project has the potential to produce enough battery materials to support the production of over 800,000 EVs per year, Champagne said.

(By David Ljunggren; Editing by David Gregorio)