French President Emmanuel Macron speaks to employees of a factory producing batteries for electric cars in Dunkirk, in the North, on May 12, 2023 (POOL/AFP/PASCAL ROSSIGNOL)
The Chinese XTC and the French Orano will invest 1.5 billion euros and create 1,700 jobs in a site linked to lithium batteries in Dunkirk (North), Emmanuel Macron announced on Friday.
“We have just signed with XTC and Orano the production of cathode materials for lithium batteries,” he said during a trip to Dunkirk. The project amounts to “1.5 billion euros for 1,700 jobs”, he said.
This announcement comes a few hours after the formalization of the installation of a production plant for batteries for electric cars in Dunkirk, the fourth in Hauts-de-France, that of the Taiwanese group ProLogium.
Contacted by AFP, the management of Orano indicated that it would communicate on this subject at the time of the Choose France summit, intended to attract foreign projects, the 6th edition of which is scheduled for Monday in Versailles.
XTC New Energy Materials specializes in the production of materials for lithium batteries used in particular for electric vehicles.
Emmanuel Macron had met his director general, Jiang Long, in Canton, during his visit to China last April.
The joint venture between XTC and Orano is presented by the Head of State as “complementary” to the Prologium factory, because it will intervene “upstream” of the production of electric batteries.
According to a source familiar with the matter, it will set up at the port of Dunkirk, just like the ProLogium factory – whose investment amounts to 5.2 billion euros by 2030, with the key 3,000 jobs in the factory and 12,000 indirect jobs for the territory.
“Before the end of the decade, we will have more than 20,000 new jobs in the Dunkirk basin”, according to Emmanuel Macron. “We are going to put the package on skills and training, it is the mother of battles.”
In addition to Prologium, three other factories are being designed in France, all in the Nord and Pas-de-Calais. The first, built by ACC (a joint venture between Stellantis, TotalEnergies and Mercedes-Benz), is due to open soon in Douvrin near Lens (Pas-de-Calais).
A factory of the Sino-Japanese group AESC-Envision must produce batteries for Renault in Douai (North) from the beginning of 2025, then a third site of the Grenoble start-up Verkor must go into production in Dunkirk from mid-2025 , also with Renault as its main customer.
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© 2023 AFP
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