China’s XTC and France’s Orano will invest 1.5 billion euros and create 1,700 jobs in a site linked to lithium batteries in Dunkirk (Nord), Emmanuel Macron announced Friday. “We have just signed with XTC and Orano to produce 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 just hours after the official announcement of the installation of a battery production plant for electric cars in Dunkirk, the fourth in the Hauts-de-France region, that of the Taiwanese group ProLogium. Contacted by AFP, Orano’s management 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.
20,000 jobs created by 2030
XTC New Energy Materials specializes in the production of materials for lithium batteries used in electric vehicles. Emmanuel Macron met with its general manager, Jiang Long, in Guangzhou, 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 plant, because it will intervene “upstream” of the production of electric batteries. According to a source close to the matter, it will be located at the port of Dunkirk, just like the ProLogium plant, which will invest 5.2 billion euros between now and 2030, with 3,000 jobs in the plant and 12,000 indirect jobs in the area. “Before the end of the decade, we will have more than 20,000 new jobs in the Dunkirk basin,” according to Emmanuel Macron. “We’re going to put our foot down on skills and training, that’s the mother of all battles.”
In addition to Prologium, three other plants are being designed in France, all in the Nord and Pas-de-Calais regions. 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 is to produce batteries for Renault in Douai (Nord) from the beginning of 2025, then a third site of the Grenoble-based start-up Verkor is to start production in Dunkirk from mid-2025, also with Renault as its main customer.
