Announces major order from Ascend Elements USA

American company Ascend Elements has bagged a major order worth USD 5 billion in the US. Its mission is to provide cathode precursor materials (pCAM) for battery manufacturing.

Beginning in Q4 2024, Ascend Elements will initially ship $1 billion worth of pCAM. However, Ascend did not name the client. It was only a multi-year contract. According to the terms of the contract, after the first delivery, the customer will have an option to renew and expand the contract worth $5 billion.

Ascent Elements is building a factory in Kentucky to manufacture standard battery products. According to the current plan, enough cathode material (CAM) and precursors for up to 750,000 electric vehicle batteries will roll off the production line every year after the expected end of 2023. Incidentally, this is three times more than what the company had previously reported. So far, CAM and pCAMs for 250,000 electric vehicles have always been talked about.

Groundbreaking was laid in October 2022, when the US Department of Energy awarded Ascend Elements two grants totaling $480 million to accelerate the facility in Kentucky.

“Almost 100 percent of the world’s pCAM is produced in Asia,” said Mike O’Cronley, CEO of Ascend Elements. “We cannot make critical battery products like these in the U.S. In fact, we need to make our own battery products in North America to secure the supply chain, reduce carbon emissions, and ensure our energy independence.

In March 2023, the company opened its first commercial-scale lithium-ion battery recycling facility in Georgia, USA. According to Ascend Elements, Base 1 is North America’s largest recycling facility for electric vehicle batteries. 30,000 tons of batteries are processed there every year, which should correspond to about 70,000 electric vehicle batteries.
ascendelements.com