AMG to built Lithium Hydroxide refining plant in Germany

The Dutch Advanced Metallurgical Group (AMG) is planning to build a lithium hydroxide refinery in the German town of Zeitz, Saxony-Anhalt. The metal to be processed there is to be used to produce electric car batteries.

AMG’s German subsidiary AMG Lithium GmbH, Frankfurt, is the one that has commenced basic engineering for a “battery-grade” lithium hydroxide facility. Finance is to come through a grant from the Investitionsbank Sachsen-Anhalt. Detailed engineering for that plant will begin by the end of this year.

The new facility is still subject to the necessary approvals. Once operational, it will utilise validated processes, fed with “technical grade” lithium hydroxide. AMG Lithium GmbH has already established what it calls a “state-of-the-art lithium hydroxide and battery materials laboratory” in Frankfurt-Hoechst.

Total capital investment for the refining plant and laboratory is presently estimated at approximately $50 million to $60 million (up to 54 million euros). The German facility will help AMG to build a “technical grade” lithium hydroxide plant in Brazil, and the company aims to open the European market for that expansion thus. Brazil, in turn, delivers said technical grade Lithium hydroxide to Europe.

Moreover, the Dutch plans have garnered interest in the Erzgebirge region, where the Deutsche Lithium is considering building a mine to mine the light metal, as German Handelsblatt reports.

amg-nv.com, handelsblatt.com (in German)