New Delhi: India’s largest electronic waste recycling company Etro Recycling on Tuesday announced its plans to invest $1 billion to expand globally over the next five years.
As part of its plan, the battery recycling firm will set up plants in the US, Poland and Indonesia, and will also expand its India operations.
Through this investment, Attero aims to recycle more than 300,000 tonnes of lithium-ion battery waste per year by 2027 at its facilities spread across Europe, the US, India and Indonesia.
The company said in a statement that its expansion plan would be implemented in a phased manner. In the first phase, Attero will invest $500 million to increase its lithium-ion battery recycling capacity to 150,000 tonnes by 2025. The European facility will be operational by the fourth quarter of 2022, while the facility in Ohio, US will be operational. third quarter of 2023.
The factory in Indonesia is expected to be functional by the first quarter of 2024. “This capacity expansion will enable Eetero to become a global leader in meeting green metal demand and meeting more than 15% of the world’s demand for cobalt, lithium, graphite, nickel, among others. Expansion overseas In line with its plans to do so, Etero will continue to accelerate its India operations,” it said.
To reach its target of 300,000 tons of lithium-ion battery waste per year by 2027, Etero will invest an additional $500 million in Phase II. This additional capital expenditure will be used to increase the capacity to 150,000 tonnes through its facilities around the world.
On expanding operations in India, Nitin Gupta, CEO and Co-Founder, Atero Recycling said that the company is in the process of achieving 11,000 tonnes of capacity in India and will increase this to 50,000 tonnes in the next few years. ,
“The first plant in Europe is coming up in Poland. The first plant in the US is coming up in Ohio, in India we are expanding the plant in South India. The first plant will also be in Indonesia and then we will do each of these in the next five years. Will increase the capacity of the plant manifold.
He said that about 35 percent of the total investment of $1 billion is in Europe, 35 percent in America, about 20 percent in India, 10 percent in Indonesia and .
Talking about the source of capital for investment, he said that about 50% of the investment would come from internal sources, around 32% would come from debt and 18% would come from equity.
“There has been a greater focus on electric vehicles, resulting in increased demand for lithium-ion battery recycling. By 2030, 2.5 million tons of lithium-ion batteries will reach the end of life.”
The company aims to employ over 100 people by the end of 2022, with plans to increase the number to 200 by the end of 2023.
Founded in 2008 by Rohan Gupta and Nitin Gupta, Etero is backed by International Finance Corporation and Kalaari Capital.