CASE STUDIES
Supporting the Planning of a Gigafactory in Ukraine
Supporting the case to develop a battery supply chain in Ukraine, with a Gigafactory at its heart.
This project was delivered with no charge to the client in a show of solidarity with the people of Ukraine and the necessity to support its rebuild and regrowth.
WHO WAS THE CUSTOMER?
Ukrainian Lithium Corporation (ULC) is the first company with an initiative to set up a gigafactory in Ukraine to support the automotive industries across Europe. The idea of The First Ukrainian Gigafactory is based on the EU green deal
and the EU plan not to manufacture cars with internal combustion engines after 2035.
WHAT WAS THE BRIEF?
The potential to establish a Gigafactory is seen as a catalyst to support the socio-economic growth of Ukraine and be ideally positioned to capitalize on the stock of Lithium reserves found in Ukraine, coupled with the emergent demand for electric vehicles in Eastern Europe.
The founders of ULC were interested in running a study to ascertain whether this would be feasible. They were also very keen to understand the requirements of a gigafactory for which they have approached HSSMI to provide support in the early phases of their planning and development for a Ukrainian based battery cell gigafactory.
WHY WERE HSSMI BROUGHT IN?
ULC is confident about HSSMI’s capability, specialist knowledge of cell manufacturing processes, equipment and facility, experience working directly with the globally leading cell manufacturing businesses across strategic, tactical and operational activities to support the set up and operation of Gigafactories.
ULC believes working with HSSMI will enable them to get vital information that would make them easy to take appropriate decisions at times and point them towards the right direction of achieving their goal to set up a first gigafactory in Ukraine.
WHAT DID HSSMI DO TO DELIVER THE RESULTS?
HSSMI fed ULC’s baseline requirements together with its existing gigafactory knowledge into HSSMI’s proprietary models to identify facility cost, utility and labour requirements, footprint, timing, energy, throughput, raw materials requirements based on production scenarios. The results have been validated against the results of a global benchmarking of existing, in development and planned gigafactory facilities worldwide to give more robustness to the results. Mapping of materials sources, quantities and processes in the supply chain, prior to arriving on site at the Gigafactory were also included as a part of the deliverables.
WHAT WERE THE OUTPUTS?
The study enabled ULC to assess the associated costs and requirements of a 50 GWh Battery Cell Manufacturing Facility. This played a significant role in developing an investment strategy and business case for ULC.
WHAT IMPACT DID THIS MAKE?
With the outcome of HSSMI’s initial phase of support, ULC has gone public to attract investors to progress to the next phase of their project by tremendous Investment offer & highlights.
WHAT ARE THE PROSPECTS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF LITHIUM IN UKRAINE?
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- The main lithium deposits are associated with Proterozoic complexes of alkaline rocks, carbonate and granite pegmatites.
- Significant lithium reserves have been discovered at the Shevchenkivske, Polokhivske, Stankuvatske deposits and Dobra, Kruta Balka are promising areas.
- There is an estimated 1893.43 ha of lithium oxide reserves amongst other critical raw materials in Ukraine but none are currently being mined.
(Source: Vasylenko, Svitlana & Uliana, Naumenko. (2022). PROSPECTS OF DEVELOPMENT OF LITHIUM RESOURCE BASE IN UKRAINE. InterConf. 10.51582/inter- conf.19-20.02.2022.072.)
Source: Critical raw materials (2021) UGS.)
While intermediary materials, components for a battery cell that have undergone pre-processing – Cathode active material, electrolyte, etc., are produced in some volumes in Europe, Europe is almost entirely reliant on importing battery raw materials from countries like Australia, China and Chile. With China currently holding a 70% market share on most battery components, Europe needs to investigate local resource supplies to ensure its competitiveness. The study delivered for ULC is aimed to support a wider vision of a self-sustaining battery industry in Ukraine and Europe, supplemented by recycling and recovery systems.
CONTACT US
Contact us today for a short initial conversation on how HSSMI can help your organisation achieve its strategic goals.
