Green Lithium, which is backed by commodities trading giant Trafigura, will build a £600m refinery for the battery material at PD Ports’ Teesport, the UK’s fifth largest port. Project backers aim to create 1,000 jobs during the construction phase and enough lithium hydroxide for 1 million electric vehicles each year when the plant is complete. The move comes as confidence in plans to make the north-east of England a hub for green jobs and the electric vehicle industry has been rocked by Britishvolt’s woes. The battery firm, which planned to develop a £3.8bn ‘gigafactory’, last week secured five weeks of emergency funding from commodities giant Glencore as it prepared to appoint administrators. The government hopes to strengthen the supply chain for electric vehicles, ahead of a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars in 2030. Lithium is an essential component of batteries and is one of the “critical minerals” used in technology from cell phones to wind turbines. Ministers raised concerns about the vulnerability of supply chains for critical minerals, particularly those sourced from China amid worsening political relations between China and the US and UK in recent years. Countries from the UK to the US are trying to develop domestic sources of minerals used in batteries, including Cornish lithium in Redruth. Pure lithium is not found in nature, so it is refined by evaporating lithium-rich brine fluids or extracting from hard rocks bearing lithium minerals. Almost 90% of the world’s lithium processing takes place in East Asia. Green Lithium plans to use a “low energy process” with renewable electricity and make the plant capable of using hydrogen and sequestering carbon emissions. Green Lithium said the Teesside refining process would have a carbon footprint “80% lower than traditional processes currently used internationally”. Subscribe to Business Today Get ready for the business day – we’ll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. The company plans to officially open the plant in 2025 and it will take three years to build, eventually creating 250 permanent jobs. The factory will cost £600m to build. The project received £600,000 in government funding in April 2021 and separate discussions about government support for the planning phase are ongoing. Business secretary Grant Shapps visited the site on Monday. He said: “We are supporting companies like Green Lithium here on Teesside to develop new green industries across the UK, sparking jobs and growth for decades to come.” Shapps said the government is moving to “secure our supply chains of critical minerals. We know that geopolitical threats and global events beyond our control can seriously affect the supply of key components which could delay the roll-out of electric vehicles in the UK.” Claire Blanchelande, head of lithium at Trafigura, said: “Green Lithium’s refinery will be one of the few ready in the middle of this decade when we see demand for electric vehicles growing in a very significant way in the UK and Europe.” . In June, Trafigura posted a record first-half profit of $2.7bn (£2.4bn) after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine led to massive volatility in commodity markets.
