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SK On, the battery manufacturing arm of SK Innovation Co., has signed a 5-year deal with a Chilean chemicals company, Sociedad Química y Minera or SQM. Under the contract, the South Korean firm will be purchasing lithium battery material from the latter.
SK On’s move to partner with SQM for the supply of the said key battery material is said to be part of its import diversification strategy. It was agreed that for five straight years, the chemicals firm headquartered in Santiago, Chile, would be supplying a total of 57,000 tons of lithium to SK On.
The importation of lithium to Korea is set to begin next year. SK On said that the agreed volume of the said battery material is enough for the production of batteries for 1.2 million electric vehicles.
Yonhap News Agency reported that SK On is expecting its deal with SQM to be very helpful in its efforts to meet the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) requirements. This is because Chile is one of the free trade agreement (FTA) partners of the United States.
Moreover, the IRA grants a tax credit to consumers when they buy an electric vehicle with batteries that have at least 40% of key minerals that were extracted or processed in the U.S. or its other FTA partner countries. It was mentioned that the required percentage of the materials content will gradually go up to 80% by the year 2027.
"The deal with SQM is a part of our business strategy to support global production expansion and proactively respond to changes in the external environment," Jin Kyo Won, SK On’s chief operating officer, said in the statement.
Carlos Diaz, SQM’s executive vice president, also stated, "We will create synergy by carrying out various cooperation in the value chain beyond the supply of lithium hydroxide to SK On."
As per Aju Business Daily, the two companies also have plans to expand their partnership for more business in the future. SK On may place an order for additional lithium supply, so there is a possibility for more new deals.
