Northvolt plans to build a lithium salt plant with a joint venture of 700 million euros with an annual output of 35000 tons of lithium hydroxide

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Northvolt, a Swedish battery start-up, announced on December 14th that it would set up a joint venture "Aurora" with energy company Galp Energia in Portugal to build a lithium salt plant.

Aurora, which will be 50 per cent owned by Northvolt and Galp Energia, will invest about 700m euros and create 1500 direct and indirect jobs, which is expected to be completed and operational in 2026.

The plant can produce 35000 tons of lithium hydroxide a year (enough for about 700000 electric vehicles), half of which will be used to produce Northvolt batteries.

According to Northvolt's plan, the company aims to achieve about 150GWh battery capacity by 2030 and occupy a 25 per cent market share in Europe. Among them, Northvolt announced a private placement of US $2.75 billion on June 9 this year to further invest in supporting cell production capacity and research and development, expanding its Swedish plant from 40GWh to 60GWH to meet the growing needs of its major customers.

It is worth noting that Northvolt has won contracts worth more than $27 billion from BMW, Fluence, Scania, Volkswagen, Volkswagen, Polestar and other major customers to support the company's development plans, including the establishment of recycling capacity to achieve the company's goal of purchasing 50 per cent of its raw materials from recycled batteries by 2030.