South Korea's LFP cathode supply chain is entering preparations for full operation after its first shipment. L&F said on Monday that its unit L&F Plus shipped for the first time trial-production output made on South Korea's first LFP (lithium iron phosphate) cathode mass production line on July 31.

L&F Plus is a wholly owned unit dedicated to producing and selling L&F's LFP cathode materials. Its LFP-only plant, built on a roughly 100,000 square metre site in the national industrial complex in Dalseong county, Daegu, was completed in May after an investment of 338 billion won. In the same month, it secured a total 220 billion won in 12-year long-term, low-interest loans from the National Growth Fund. Starting with this trial shipment, it plans to enter full-scale mass production by the end of the third quarter after customer evaluations and process stabilisation.

The product shipped this time is a high-density, third-generation LFP cathode material developed with the aim of higher energy density than general LFP. L&F Plus plans to develop products with a PD of at least 2.50 g/cc to complement LFP's low energy density. It will expand applications from grid energy storage systems to ESS for AI data centres and entry-level electric vehicles.

Its customer portfolio is also expanding. L&F signed a mid- to long-term LFP cathode supply contract worth about 1.6 trillion won with Samsung SDI in March. More recently, it also signed an additional supply contract with U.S. battery company CoreShell Technology. The company said this is part of a strategy to pre-empt a non-China supply chain as more than 90 percent of the global LFP supply chain is concentrated in China.

Heo Je-hong (허제홍), L&F's CEO, said, "This first shipment of trial-production output is a meaningful starting point for stabilising production on South Korea's first LFP cathode mass production line and preparing for full-scale mass production." He added, "We will respond without disruption to customer evaluations and quality verification and steadily build a stable mass production system." He also said, "Based on a two-track strategy spanning LFP and high-nickel NCM (nickel-cobalt-manganese), we will respond to diverse demand in the EV and ESS markets, while strengthening the competitiveness of a non-China LFP supply chain to continue expanding our presence in global markets."