Rock Tech Lithium considers second plant in Germany

The German-Canadian company Rock Tech Lithium is considering a second production site in Germany. The first production plant for battery-grade lithium hydroxide is to be built in Guben, Brandenburg, as announced last year.

+ + Kindly see our update below + +

Rock Tech Lithium had presented the plans for Guben in October 2021 and at that time held out the prospect of a total of five such production sites in Europe. Now the German publication Handelsblatt provides an update on these plans: As the newspaper reports without naming sources, a second plant in Germany is also planned. However, a possible location is not mentioned.

In October it was still said that Rock Tech was planning an investment of 470 million euros for all production facilities. The other plants should therefore correspond to the one in Guben, where 160 jobs will be created and about 24,000 tonnes of battery-grade lithium hydroxide will be produced per year. Rock Tech Lithium wants to extract the raw material itself in its mine in Ontario, but the material will then be refined near the customers.

For these so-called ‘converter factories’, the industrial services provider Bilfinger will supply the production facilities, as is evident from a letter of intent published by Rock Tech. The plant in Guben alone, which is to be completed by 2024, is to produce enough lithium hydroxide for up to 500,000 electric cars.

However, the Handelsblatt points out that the company has neither been granted permission for the Georgia Lake mine project nor for the construction of the converter factory in Guben. Moreover, there are no binding customers yet. Potential customers, on the other hand, are: BASF’s cathode material factory in Schwarzheide, which is currently under construction, is nearby, and Tesla’s Gigafactory, where battery cells are to be built in the future, could also be well supplied. But it is still a “could”.

The head of the supervisory board, Dirk Habecke, who was also the CEO of the company for a time last year, told Handelsblatt that the first purchase contract would be announced this year. The manager also reassured on the other points. “The approval procedures are underway, the plans are in place and the sites are secured,” said Habecke.

Habecke has hired Markus Brügmann to succeed CEO Simon Bodensteiner. The 53-year-old had previously worked for industrial groups such as ABB and Mitsubishi Power. “With Markus Brügmann, we have definitely brought the necessary expertise in-house,” supervisory board head Habecke is quoted as saying.

Update 23 February 2022:

Rock Tech Lithium has submitted the documents for the first partial permit to build the lithium hydroxide converter in Guben, Brandenburg, that it announced last autumn. The first partial application focuses on the approval of buildings, roads and basic infrastructure. At the same time, the basic eligability of the project as well as its environmental compatibility will be examined. The second partial application, which follows in May, concerns the actual production facilities. In a further partial application in July, final applications will be made for utilities and ancillary buildings.

handelsblatt.com (in German), rocktechlithium.com (deal with Bilfinger), rocktechlithium.com