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 customer. It was only a multi-year contract. According to the terms of the contract, after the first delivery, the customer will have the option to renew and expand the larger contract worth $5 billion.

Ascent Elements is building a factory in Kentucky to manufacture standard battery products. According to the previous plan, enough cathode material (CAM) and precursors for 750,000 electric vehicle batteries will roll off the assembly line every year after the planned end of 2023. Incidentally, this is three times more than what the company had previously reported. To date, CAMs and pCAMs for 250,000 electric vehicles are always talked about.

The groundwork was laid in October 2022, when the U.S. Department of Energy awarded Ascent Elements two grants totaling $480 million to accelerate the facility in Kentucky.

“Nearly 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 this 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 can be processed there every year, which corresponds to around 70,000 electric vehicle batteries.
ascendelements.com