SKC Co.’s shares rallied Monday after it signed a $1 billion copper-foil supply deal with Swedish battery maker Northvolt AB.
Shares of the South Korean chemical company rose as much as 9.7% to 99,700 won ($76.93) in morning trade, remaining on course to notch the strongest daily percentage gain in four months.The broader stock benchmark was 0.1% higher.
The rally came after SK Nexilis Co., affiliated with SKC under South Korea’s second-largest conglomerate, SK Group, signed a contract in Stockholm Sunday with Northvolt to supply the Swedish electric-vehicle battery maker with copper foil worth KRW1.4 trillion ($1.08 billion) for five years starting from 2024.
The contract volume is likely to meet about 80% of Northvolt’s copper-foil needs or be used to make 1.7 million electric vehicles, according to SK Nexilis.
SKC has been building a new copper-foil plant in Poland with an annual production capacity of 50,000 tons since July 2022, with operations due to begin next year.
Seoul-based Heungkuk Securities said in a recent research note that it expects SKC, which also runs copper-foil plants in Malaysia and South Korea, to double its annual copper-foil output to 102,000 tons in 2023, forecasting its copper-foil business should account for 55% of its total profit this year.