Hans News Service Visakhapatnam

AndhraPradesh announced a Rs 4,000 crore integrated LFP battery materials plant at Naidupeta in Tirupati district, after Nara Lokesh, Minister for HRD, IT & Electronics, met the leadership of Carbon Cosmo Advanced Materials Private Limited in Visakhapatnam on the eve of the CII Partnership Summit.

The plant will make ferric phosphate (FP) precursor and lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cathode materials, which are key inputs for lithium-ion batteries.

Carbon Cosmo is a joint venture of Kolkata-based Carbon Resources Pvt Ltd (CRPL), which already runs a calcined petroleum coke plant at Bobbili in Vizianagaram district, and South Korea’s COSMO AM&T Co., Ltd, a listed maker of cathode materials that supplies Samsung SDI and LG Energy Solution.

The plant will come up on 230 acres using COSMO technology. At full scale, it will produce 1.8 lakh tonnes per annum (TPA) each of FP and LFP, with up to 1.3 lakh TPA for export. It will be built in three phases. Phase I, with 30,000 TPA of each, is due by mid-2028, and Phase III by 2031.

The project is expected to create 700 direct jobs and 3,500 to 5,000 indirect jobs.

The Memorandum of Understanding was signed on October 16 at SRM University, Amaravati. The State Investment Promotion Board (SIPB) approved the project on November 6.

Lokesh invited COSMO to partner with IIT Tirupati on a cathode-testing and battery-recycling lab. “I am excited to welcome Carbon Cosmo to Andhra Pradesh.

This India-Korea partnership brings world-class cathode technology to Naidupeta and fills a critical gap in India’s battery supply chain.

Andhra Pradesh is determined to become the country’s hub for EV and battery manufacturing, and we will back this project at every step,” said Nara Lokesh, Minister for HRD, IT & Electronics.

The company was represented by Abhinav Kumar Jalan, managing director, CRPL Group; Deuk-Kyu Park, Vice President, COSMO AM&T; Byeongdae Kim, general manager, COSMO AM&T; Aman Kapur, Seung Jong Lee and others.