SK IE Technology mulls adding LiBS factory in US, says SKIET president

SK IE Technology Co. (SKIET), a global top lithium-ion battery separator (LiBS) player under South Korea’s energy and battery maker SK Innovation Co., is considering adding a LiBS factory in North America to meet fast-rising separator demand in the region under the US government’s all-out push to boost its electric vehicle industry, said the company's president in a recent interview.

“At the moment, our facilities are additionally under expansion in Silesia Province in Poland, and we are also studying the possibilities to advance to the North America market, where we expect high growth,” SKIET President Kim Cheol-jung said in his interview with the company media on Monday. Kim was appointed as the President of SKIET in December 2022. 

SKIET is seeking to join a global rush to the US with its first-ever factory in North America not to miss out on various benefits including tax breaks for EVs made in the US with parts and components produced on American soil or its free trade partners under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) passed last year by the Biden administration to bolster the country’s EV industry.

SKIET currently runs LiBS factories in Korea, China and Poland that can churn out a combined 1.53 billion square meters of separators annually as of the fourth quarter of last year, according to the company.

It expects the total output would nearly double to 2.73 billion square meters once all the additional lines at the Poland factory start operation in 2024.  

Kim bets on the future of the EV market, the key driver of the LiBS market, despite looming geopolitical, global economic and public health risks. LiBS is a core part of an EV battery.

“Each country supports eco-friendly industries on a policy level to prevent climate change, and in this stance, countries such as the US and China and those in Europe are competitively developing their EV markets,” said the president.

He urged the company to secure more advanced separator technologies for the next-generation EV batteries, such as semi- and all-solid batteries and solid electrolytes technology, in the mid- to long-term to remain competitive amid intensifying competition in the global separator market.

SKIET will also strive to be a leading global green material company by finding new growth opportunities in green materials businesses with its world’s leading technological prowess in membranes, coating and synthesizing, Kim added.

“2023 will mark the starting platform for SKIET's next great leap,” said Kim. The company celebrates its 60th anniversary this year.

SKIET, 61.2% owned by its parent SK Innovation, is the world’s No. 1 player in the high-quality top-tier separator market.

It was the first Korean company to develop LiBS in 2004, and the first in the world to develop sequential stretching process technology in 2007, the company said. 

It was spun off from parent SK Innovation in 2019 and went public in May 2021.

Write to Jae-Fu Kim at hu@hankyung.com

Sookyung Seo edited this article.