LS Cable & System will establish the country's first rare earth permanent magnet production hub by investing 150 billion won.
On the 30th, LS Cable & System disclosed that it would contribute 150 billion won to its subsidiary, Korea Motion Works, to enter the rare earth permanent magnet business. Korea Motion Works was established this month for the purpose of constructing a rare earth permanent magnet production plant.
LS Cable & System is the first company to build a large-scale rare earth permanent magnet plant in Korea, including those for electric vehicles and robots. Gumi in North Gyeongsang Province is mentioned as the location for the production hub.
The LS Group is building a rare earth permanent magnet production supply chain that spans from raw material procurement to metallization and magnet manufacturing. In March last year, LS Eco Energy signed a comprehensive cooperation agreement with Australia's Lynas and strengthened their partnership by mutually subscribing to convertible bonds (CBs) worth 30 billion won each.
Lynas is the only company outside of China that separates and commercially produces rare earths. Under this structure, Lynas supplies rare earth raw materials, LS Eco Energy produces metals in Vietnam, and these are supplied to LS Cable & System's permanent magnet plant.
On the same day, it was announced that LS Eco Energy would invest 11.6 billion won to build a samarium metal production facility in Vietnam. This marks the first time a domestic company has produced rare earth metals outside of China-centric supply chains.
Samarium metal is a key raw material for SmCo (samarium-cobalt) permanent magnets, which maintain stable magnetic force even at high temperatures. SmCo permanent magnets are primarily used in aerospace and defense sectors, such as fighter jets and missiles, where high heat resistance and stability are required.
The company will build a production facility with an annual capacity of approximately 240 tons on the site of LSCV (Vietnam Production Subsidiary) in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. This volume is sufficient to produce approximately 700 to 1,000 tons of SmCo permanent magnets annually, and the company plans to begin trial production in December.
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