■ Started the commercial production of 340 million m² line in Changzhou, contributed to SK Innovation’s deep change and ESG 

■ Secured the production base in China, a huge market, and raised the business competitiveness

■ Increased production capability up to 870 million m², expected to reach 1.87 billion m² by 2023 by adding factories in Poland and China

■ On its way to solidify the world’s No. 1 position with 30% share in the wet separator market by 2025

■ “Secured the production base in China, the world’s largest EV market […] and keeps growing while contributing to the battery-related industrial ecosystem”

SK IE Technology (CEO & President: Roh Jae-sok), a material business subsidiary of SK Innovation, announced on the 10th that it has started the commercial production of the LiBS (Lithium-ion Battery Separators) factory in Changzhou, China.

SK Innovation is seeing the fruits of its “deep change” effort to expand its refinery chemical-centric business to batteries and materials through bold investments. The growth of the separator business, which is the key to the rapid growth of the global battery industry, also means the company can accelerate its ESG management.

In order to respond to the global demand in 2018, SK IE Technology decided to establish its first overseas production base in Changzhou, China. In March 2019, it started to build a separator factory here with an annual production capacity of 340 million m². The Changzhou factory was completed in early August of this year, and the facility was tested after a three-month trial run.

SK IE Technology has greatly raised its global business competitiveness by operating its first overseas production base. In particular, as it is possible to produce high quality separators in China, which accounts for nearly half of the global EV market, a system has been established to respond more quickly to increasing orders.

With the operation of the Changzhou plant this time, SK IE Technology has increased its production capacity to a total of 870 million m², including a 530 million m² separator factory in Jeungpyeong, North Chungcheong Province, Korea.

SK IE Technology plans to sequentially operate overseas factories under construction in China and Poland by 2023. Accordingly, it is expected to have a production capacity of about 1.37 billion m² at the end of next year and about 1.87 billion m² at the end of 2023.

SK IE Technology aims to solidify its world No. 1 position 2025 with about 30% share in the wet separator market with its unrivaled technologies to manufacture premium separators, such as “sequential stretching” and “ceramic coated separator (CCS)” technology, and bold investments that can rapidly boost its production capacity.

“We were able to strengthen our business competitiveness in the global separator market through securing the global production base in China, the world’s largest EV market. Since not only the EVs but also battery-related industry are growing rapidly, we will continue to make a stable supply of separator products to keep growing and contributing to the development of the related industrial ecosystem”, said President of SK IE Technology Rho Jae-sok.