Posted on 25 Feb 2025
Chinese leading battery manufacturer CALB has committed €2 billion ($2.1 billion) to set up a gigafactory in Sines, Portugal.
The facility will have a capacity of 15 gigawatt-hours per year, equivalent to around 187,000 electric vehicle batteries, Kallanish understands. Construction of the complex, which the government deems a “project of national interest,” is expected to start in the second quarter of 2025.
Operations will begin in 2028, according to local media, creating 1,800 direct jobs.
Partly state-owned CALB, which is the seventh-largest supplier of EV batteries globally, is looking to expand its presence in Europe and plans to target the domestic market.
The group obtained a conditional environmental permit from the Portuguese government last year, after signing an agreement with the Portuguese Agency for Investment and Foreign Trade in 2023 to reserve the factory location in Sines. The town is an industrial hub and home to the largest deep-water port on the Atlantic coast of the Iberian Peninsula, making it Europe’s closest deep-water port to the Panama Canal.
Source:Kallanish
