Umicore seeks new recycling site near chemicals industry to partner on CO2 capture

By Victoria Waldersee

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - Umicore is seeking a location for a new battery recycling facility in Europe and mostly looking near chemicals industry sites to partner on carbon capture and storage, its chief executive said in an interview with Reuters on Friday.

The company expects to announce a location by the end of September, Mathias Miedreich said, speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

"We can only locate where we have access to infrastructure to get rid of the CO2," he said, adding Europe had a couple of harbour ports which had a carbon dioxide pipeline system in place and could be suitable locations.

"We are surfing in the shadow of the chemical industry... there are already a couple of projects going on we can link to that will solve the equation for us."

Umicore, a Belgium-based materials technology group, also plans to announce a new location for refining and precursor activities in Europe which would refine and process materials to transform them into cathodes for batteries.

Miedreich said the company was looking across Europe for possible sites including the west of the continent - "Spain, France, etcetera."

The two activities could be done at the same location if the right site was found, he added.

(Reporting by Victoria Waldersee; Editing by Mark Potter)