Syensqo, Orbia delay battery plants

In response to decelerating electric car sales, a joint venture between Syensqo and Orbia has delayed construction of a plant that will produce polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), a binder used to make batteries, by up to 2 years.

Syensqo and Orbia broke ground just 4 months ago on the PVDF plant, which was initially slated to open in 2026. In a May earnings call, Syensqo CEO Ilham Kadri told investors that the company was moving forward with the project, even though firms including BASF, Umicore, and Northvolt had already announced decisions to slow investment in battery materials. “We do not believe the short-term dynamics is changing the rationale of our PVDF investments” in the US, Kadri said on the call. But she also noted that Syensqo could time construction and expansion to align with market growth.

A facility that Orbia is building in Louisiana to produce lithium hexafluorophosphate (LiPF₆), an electrolyte salt for batteries, will also open later than originally planned. The plant was scheduled to start up in 2026, but Orbia CEO Sameer Bharadwaj now expects the project to be completed after the PVDF plant. Orbia recently started the design and engineering work for that project.

The Department of Energy (DOE) has offered hundreds of millions of dollars in grant funding to support both plants. Syensqo claims the delay is still in line with the terms of the department’s grant.

While the battery industry is growing quickly, it’s still difficult to convince customers to adopt material from a new facility, says Michael Sanders, a battery industry analyst with Avicenne Energy. Kadri said on the May call that representatives from several carmakers had attended the PVDF plant’s groundbreaking. Such support doesn’t necessarily translate into firm contracts, however.

Sanders points out that the handful of existing battery cell producers in North America already have PVDF suppliers. There are even fewer North American electrolyte producers to buy Orbia’s LiPF₆. Syensqo and Orbia could try to sell to companies planning battery plants, but those projects might be delayed or canceled.

Sanders says there has been a burst of enthusiasm for electric cars over the last several years, which caused some companies to overestimate the near-term demand for batteries. He says the remedy to this problem is to do a better job of accounting for the inevitable hurdles. “Where they come in should be a surprise,” he says. “That they come in should not be a surprise.”