The port city could receive an investment from the Portuguese-Swedish partnership estimated at 700 million euros. Savannah, which aims to explore lithium in Barroso, says that “talks are ongoing” with the companies.
From an initial list of 30 possible locations, partners Galp and Northvolt chose Setúbal to install the future lithium processing unit, which is expected to start commercial operations in 2026, potentially creating 200 qualified jobs and another 3,000 indirect jobs.
Galp and Northvolt have selected the port city of Setúbal as the location for the installation of the lithium conversion plant of the Aurora joint venture, which aims to be the launch pad for the development of an integrated lithium battery value chain in Europe,” the companies announced in a statement yesterday.
The chosen location, “in the Sapec Bay Industrial Park, has access to infrastructure, railways, port facilities, and the ideal location to obtain reagents and reuse by-products,” they explained.
The Aurora Lith partnership, announced by the Portuguese-Swedish consortium in December, foresees an investment of 700 million euros in a “refinery” capable of producing between 28,000 and 35,000 tons per year of lithium hydroxide—enough for the manufacture of 50 gigawatt hours (GWh) of batteries per year, sufficient for 700,000 electric vehicles, according to the companies.
The final investment decision is expected by the end of 2023, and until then, the consortium is still waiting to know if it will have access to funds from the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR), through the application to the so-called mobilizing agendas, whose results are expected to be announced at the beginning of the summer. In the application presentation at the end of last year, Galp pointed to Sines as the location for the refinery.
"Setúbal deserves this investment,” said the mayor, André Martins, quoted in the statement. “The Setúbal City Council and the parish councils have invested in the qualification of this territory,” said the CDU mayor, highlighting the municipality’s “qualified industrial areas, good road, rail, and port accessibility.”
The Sapec Group, which gives its name to the “Sapec Bay” Industrial Park, was created in 1926 to explore the pyrite mines of Lousal, in Grândola..
Today, according to the company’s information, several services are provided here, including the “provision of solutions and distribution of chemical products for industry,” “multimodal logistics services,” and “port logistics services,” including solid and liquid bulk terminals. The companies ensure that the future Setúbal plant will be “one of the largest and most sustainable in Europe” and “will use a proven conversion process, leveraging recent advances and processing technologies to increase the sustainability and efficiency of the operation.” Additionally, it will use “green energy to power the conversion process, thus minimizing dependence on natural gas as in the conventional approach.”
However, Aurora Lith officials have already admitted that the refinery’s activity will not be conditioned by the amount of resource that may eventually be extracted in Portugal, such as in the Barroso mine, which the British Savannah (which at one point had an exclusivity contract with Galp) is currently in the process of environmental licensing.
In statements sent to Público, an official source from Savannah said that “talks with Galp/Northvolt are ongoing” and assured that the “proposed location for the refinery keeps it very accessible for the supply of spodumene from the Barroso Lithium Project,” in the municipality of Boticas.
Considering that the Aurora joint venture investment is “a fundamental step towards ensuring in Portugal the establishment of a lithium supply chain,” Savannah assures that it has “made excellent progress in the definitive feasibility study (of the Barroso mine),” in the “decarbonization plan,” and in the “metallurgical tests” carried out.
Of the volume of lithium hydroxide to be produced in Setúbal, half will be purchased by Northvolt and used in the “gigafactory” (a name derived from the unit of measurement Giga, equivalent to one billion) in Skelleftea, northern Sweden, where battery cell production began at the end of December, with German companies BMW and Volkswagen (which owns 20% of Northvolt) as main clients.
The fate of the remainder will be decided by the joint venture, with the possibility of being sold to third parties or entirely acquired by the Swedish partner.
It is also in the Setúbal district, specifically in Palmela, that Autoeuropa, one of Volkswagen Group’s 14 factories, is located.
In Palmela, the T-Roc, Sharan, and Seat Alhambra models are produced, and the Portuguese factory has not been on the list of factories where the group plans to invest in electric vehicle production, as is the case with the Pamplona and Martorell factories in Spain.
The Setúbal unit could produce enough lithium hydroxide for the manufacture of 50 gigawatt hours (GWh) of batteries, enough for 700,000 electric vehicles.
*News taken from the Público website:"