LS MnM opens 24,000-tonne nickel sulfate plant at 90th anniversary

LS MnM has commissioned a battery materials plant in Onsan, Ulsan, capable of producing 24,000 tonnes of nickel sulfate a year — enough cathode input for roughly 500,000 electric vehicles. The company marked the completion alongside its 90th anniversary ceremony at the Onsan smelter on the 10th, where CEO Koo Dong-hwi declared a new corporate vision built on a second century of growth.

"함께 일군 90년의 자부심을 바탕으로, 100년을 넘어 세대를 이어 성장하겠습니다" — "Based on the pride of 90 years built together, we will grow across generations beyond 100 years," Koo said at the ceremony.

What does the new Onsan plant actually make?

The facility is a hybrid operation. It can process both primary feedstock — mixed hydroxide precipitate, or MHP — and black mass, the recycled battery material stream. Output covers sulfate salts for the precursor supply chain: nickel sulfate, cobalt sulfate and manganese sulfate, plus lithium hydroxide for cathode material production.

The offtake picture is concrete. LS MnM will supply these materials to precursor manufacturers, including LS-L&F Battery Solutions, the group's own battery materials arm. In plain terms: one plant feeding both the open precursor market and the family downstream business.

Takeaway: this is a smelter converting refining know-how into a battery chemicals position, not a diversification into unfamiliar chemistry.

How did a 90-year-old smelter get here?

LS MnM traces its roots to 1936, when the Janghang smelter opened as Korea's first large-scale modern industrial facility. It ranks second globally in refined copper production capacity, using digitally integrated smelting to turn out copper, gold, silver, platinum and palladium, plus sulfuric acid and high-purity sulfuric acid for semiconductors — the latter recovered from smelting off-gases.

That lineage matters for the battery bet. The company's strategy explicitly leans on the global network and refining technology built through copper smelting. Koo framed the anniversary plant as the pivot point: the past 90 years refined metals, the next 100 will use those assets to "redefine the future."

"지난 90년이 금속을 정련해 온 시간이었다면 다음 100년은 그 자산으로 미래를 새롭게 정의할 시간" — "If the past 90 years were spent refining metals, the next 100 will be spent using that asset base to newly define the future," he said.

The stated plan links raw materials, processed materials and resource recycling into one capability chain, aimed at supply chains being reshaped by data centers, power grids and electrification.

Takeaway: the pitch to the market is integration — feedstock to recycling under one roof, anchored by nine decades of refining operations.

Who is Koo Dong-hwi?

Born in 1982, Koo joined LS MnM in 2024, served as COO, and took the CEO seat last December. Before that he spent over a decade at LS Electric from 2013, rising to head of vision management as a representative director. Group Chairman Koo Ja-eun, who learned the trade overseeing raw material sourcing and global sales within LS MnM's nonferrous business, has set the group-level target: existing businesses and new businesses — batteries, EVs, semiconductors — split 50:50 by 2030.

The CEO also runs "O Talk" (Open Talk) dinner sessions with employees — roughly 30 last year, more than 40 this year — and reportedly keeps the dinner appointments even after overseas and regional business trips.

Takeaway: a 43-year-old CEO with a decade at the group's electrical arm, executing a chairman-set ratio for new business growth.

What to watch next

The verified facts here are the plant completion and the stated capacity. The rest — "another growth axis," generational growth, a 50:50 business mix by 2030 — sits in the category of announced intention. Precursor makers and cathode producers will judge the Onsan output on tonnage delivered and specification consistency, not on anniversary speeches.

Watch three things: ramp-up schedules at Onsan against the 24,000-tonne nickel sulfate figure, black mass feedstock contracts that prove the recycling loop is real, and whether LS-L&F Battery Solutions' offtake expands beyond group walls. The plant is built. The capacity milestone is the next test.