South Korea`s battery maker LG Chem Ltd. broke grounds to build a facility to manufacture electric vehicle battery in Poland - its fourth - to achieve global annual capacity to make battery cells that can power over 280,000 electric cars from the latter half of next year when it starts operation.

LG Chem said a disclosure statement that it began construction on Wednesday (local time in Poland) for a 41,300 square-meter EV battery plant inside the LG complex located in Kobierzyce Commune near Wroclaw in southwestern Poland.

The new EV battery plant that the firm plans to invest 400 billion won ($360.3 million) into will be capable of producing battery cells powering more than 100,000 pure high-performance EVs that can run up to 320 kilometers on a single charge. It would be the largest lithium-ion battery manufacturing plant for EVs in Europe, capable of turning out the complete package of EV battery parts from electrodes to cells, modules, and packs.

The EV battery maker expects its new plant will allow the firm to secure cost advantage from expanded business in Europe, lower logistics cost, and make bigger use of the existing infrastructures at the LG complex in Poland.

The new Polish plant would be added to its manufacturing network in Ochang, Korea, Holland, United States, Nanjing, China, and beef up its annual capacity to power 280,000 pure high-performance electric cars. Moreover, it will be the only EV battery maker with manufacturing plants in the U.S., China, and Europe that take up 90 percent of the worldwide pure EV demand.

The three EV battery production lines in the U.S., China, and Poland will supply products to local market while the plant in Korea will supply products to local clients and control the overall supplies for global needs, the company said.

The Korean EV battery maker has landed 83 projects from 29 international automakers until recently. Its accumulated order value amounts to more than 36 trillion won and it has 34 trillion won in the order backlog when excluding accumulated sales with about 2 trillion won by 2015.

LG Chem shares on Thurday closed at 234,000 won, down 6,000 won or 2.5 percent from the previous session.

By Jung Wook

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