Altech Batteries reports significant progress at silumina anodes pilot plant project

Altech Batteries (ASX: ATC) has reported significant progress at its US$95 million (A$140 million) silumina anodes pilot plant project in Germany during the three months to end March.

The front end of the 10,000-tonne-per-annum plant (also known as the wet circuit) is advancing to plan, with the power supply, laboratory, building modifications and front-end wet circuit infrastructure completed.

The plant is located within an existing building in Dock3 at Schwarze Pumpe Industrial Park in Saxony and the necessary building modifications and electrical panel infrastructure construction were completed in the December 2022 quarter.

An on-site laboratory has been set up and is currently going through a commissioning phase.

This development is believed to be a significant step towards enabling Altech to conduct necessary testing and analyses of the silumina anodes product.

Altech has also established an on-site glove box, which will facilitate the manufacture of lithium-ion battery coin half cells to test the performance of silumina anodes produced from the pilot plant.

Altech said this is a crucial component of the product qualification process and will provide important data on the product's performance characteristics.

While fabrication of the back-end of the pilot plant — including the coating equipment, dryer, and calciner (with longer lead times) — is currently underway in South Africa and Europe, Altech is expediting the production of some back-end items including silicon carbide linings.

The company expects the final items will be installed and commissioned by mid-year.

Altech managing director Iggy Tan said the advancements made on the pilot plant have been "highly promising", considering its crucial role in supplying customer samples.

"The primary goal of this pilot plant is to offer product for customer testing, which has generated significant interest in the market," he said.

"We appreciate the diligent efforts of our team in Germany who are working tirelessly to commission the plant and commence production of commercial samples."

Mr Tan said work has commenced on a definitive feasibility study for the plant.

It follows the release of an "outstanding" preliminary feasibility study in April 2022, which gave the plant a net present value of US$507 million (A$748 million) and total revenue of US$185 million (A$273 million) a year.