SKC CEO Park Won-cheol, second from left, and other officials stand on a stage listening to the online congratulatory remarks by Polish President Andrzej Duda on screen during the groundbreaking ceremony for SK Nexilis' copper foil plant in Stalowa Wola, July 7, in this photo provided by SKC, Nexilis' parent firm. Yonhap

SKC Co., a chemical unit of South Korea's No. 2 conglomerate, SK Group, has begun the construction of a battery copper foil factory in Poland, in what will be its largest such production facility as it bolsters the electric vehicle (EV) battery component business.

SKC and its wholly owned copper foil producer SK Nexilis Co. are together spending 900 billion won ($693.4 million) to build the factory in the southeastern Polish city of Stalowa Wola by the first half of 2024.

The factory will have an annual production capacity of 50,000 tons and aims to go into mass production in the second half of 2024.

Copper foil is as thin as one-fifteenth of human hair and is used as the anode current collector of the lithium-ion battery cell, which is used in EVs.

The factory will be located in a Warsaw-led industrial zone called the Stalowa Wola E-Mobility Complex, close to major global lithium-ion battery manufacturers, according to SKC.

SKC has also secured enough land within the complex to expand the facility by up to 150,000 tons in terms of annual production, and it will consider additional investment in the area over the long haul, it said.

Top Polish government officials, including Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Stalowa Wola Mayor Lucjusz Nadberezny, were among those present at the groundbreaking ceremony. Polish President Andrzej Duda also gave a congratulatory speech via virtual link.

SK Nexilis plans to achieve a total 250,000 tons in production capacity by 2025 from its facilities in South Korea, Malaysia, Europe and North America. It launched the project to build a 50,000-ton plant in Kota Kinabalu in July last year, aiming to go into operation in 2023.

SK Nexilis is also pushing to establish a plant in North America to produce another 50,000 tons a year. (Yonhap)