High purity alumina trailblazer Altech has received local development permissions for its 4500 tonnes a year Malaysian plant, and it tells Stockhead an update on final funding for the $US298 million project will be announced next week.

Altech (ASX:ATC) has already secured $US190m from German government-owned KfW IPEX-Bank which will be released once the company secures the rest of the cash.

Meanwhile, the company has equity funded the $US10 million stage 1 construction works at the Johor HPA plant, which began in August, “to maintain project momentum”.

READ: Battery makers are planning to use a lot more HPA to stop cars catching fire

The small global HPA market of about 25,000 tonnes a year is tipped to grow to around 48,000 by 2025 and 86,000 by 2030.

Australian players like Altech will have huge operating cost advantages over existing producers in a growing market — if they can get up and running.

The Altech share price over the past year.
The Altech share price over the past year.

Despite share price weakness caused by a general sell down in equities (and the battery metals space in particular) the HPA market remains “strong and buoyant”, Altech chairman Luke Atkins said late last year.

Demand for HPA from the lithium-ion battery sector is growing faster than expected.

HPA is used in the separator of a battery to make lithium-ion battery chemistry more stable.

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