[Asia Economy Reporter Park Soyeon] SK Innovation is showing strong momentum day after day.
As of 10:10 AM on the 29th, SK Innovation is trading at 267,500 KRW, up 6,500 KRW (2.49%) from the previous day on the KOSPI market.
The day before, SK Innovation announced that it would establish an electric vehicle battery joint venture, BlueOvalSK, together with the U.S. automaker Ford, and invest a total of 11.4 billion USD (approximately 13.102 trillion KRW).
SK Innovation stated that it would invest 4.45 billion USD (5.1175 trillion KRW), corresponding to a 50% stake in BlueOvalSK.
The BlueOvalSK battery plants will be the largest ever built in the U.S. The Tennessee plant will be located on a 4.7 million pyeong (15.53 million ㎡) site alongside Ford’s electric vehicle production plant, with a production capacity of 43 gigawatt-hours (GWh). The Kentucky plant will be constructed on a 1.9 million pyeong (6.28 million ㎡) site with a capacity of 86 gigawatt-hours (two units of 43 GWh each).
Accordingly, BlueOvalSK’s total production capacity will reach 129 gigawatt-hours. This is enough to produce 2.15 million electric vehicles equipped with 60-kilowatt (KW) batteries annually. Compared to the previously announced joint venture scale of 60 gigawatt-hours, this is more than double.
Through the BlueOvalSK investment, which is the largest single investment in the company’s history, SK Innovation has laid the foundation to rapidly emerge as a leading battery company in the U.S. market. Including the two plants it is building independently in Georgia, SK Innovation will secure approximately 150 gigawatt-hours of production capacity in the U.S. alone. This is expected to exceed the goal of securing 200 gigawatt-hours of production capacity worldwide by 2025.
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