Work has begun on the POLVOLT project — recognized by the European Commission as strategic under the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA). The investment, with a total value of approximately USD 800 million, is being carried out by Elemental Battery Metals — a special purpose vehicle of the Elemental Group. By 2030, the project is set to deliver a new facility producing metals of critical importance to the European economy. Its operations will cover the refining of so-called battery metals — extraction of lithium, nickel and cobalt — as well as copper recovered from electronic waste. Together with the Li-Ion battery recycling plant operating since June 2024 and the platinum group metals facility, the Group’s total investment in Poland will reach USD 1 billion. This is the largest greenfield undertaking in the country by a private Polish company.
The Elemental Group aims to select a strategic partner for the copper segment of the POLVOLT project at the turn of 2025/2026. The company is working on securing financing and is entering the design phase of the investment.
„The POLVOLT project being carried out in Zawiercie is a two-stage undertaking, and we expect it to take approximately seven years. This year we would like to secure full financing for both phases and complete a significant portion of the design work. We expect to select a strategic partner for the copper segment at the turn of the year. For battery metals, we are giving ourselves a bit more time to gain greater clarity on geopolitical issues” – explains Paweł Jarski, founder and CEO of the Elemental Group.
„We are currently in the phase of securing full financing — it will be structured as project finance and will come from both grants and equity funding” – adds the head of the Elemental Group.
The investment in Zawiercie involves the comprehensive construction of an extensive metallurgical hub. The first stage of the project concluded with the 2024 opening of a facility for the recovery of strategic industrial and precious metals from Li-Ion electric vehicle batteries as well as from automotive and industrial catalysts.
„This part of the facility is already fully operational, but the process of reaching full production capacity will still take some time. We estimate this is a matter of the next eighteen months” – concludes CEO Jarski.