SK Innovation plans $1 billion EV battery plant in US

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South Korea’s SK Innovation will invest 1.14 trillion won or $1.01 billion to set up its first electric vehicle (EV) battery plant in the United States, Reuters reported.

The plant will have an annual capacity of 9.8 gigawatt-hours of batteries. SK Innovation will begin construction in the southeast U.S. state of Georgia in early 2019, with production targeted for 2022.

Last month, SK Innovation said it was considering building an EV battery plant in the United States to win customers in one of the world’s top markets for electric vehicles.

SK Innovation, which owns South Korea’s top refiner SK Energy, supplies its batteries to several global automakers, including Daimler and Hyundai Motor, but it does not have any U.S clients.

“SK Innovation has been actively looking for a production base to secure competitiveness in the battery business in the major global market,” Kim Jun, chief executive of SK Innovation, said in a statement.

SK Innovation’s cross-town rival, LG Chem, runs an electric battery factory in Michigan that supplies batteries to General Motors.

SK Innovation operates battery plants at home and has plans to build battery plants abroad, including in Hungary and China.

In October, it said it plans to invest 400 billion won in a plant to produce key EV battery parts in China.

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