Emmanuel Macron announces 1.5 billion euros of investment between Orano and the Chinese XTC in Dunkirk

The Chinese XTC and the French Orano will invest 1.5 billion euros and create 1,700 jobs in a site linked to lithium batteries in Dunkirk (North), Emmanuel Macron announced on Friday May 12. “We have just signed with XTC and Orano the production of cathode materials for lithium batteries”, he said during his trip to the Aluminum Dunkirk factory. The project amounts to “1.5 billion euros for 1,700 jobs”said the Head of State.

This announcement comes a few hours after the formalization of the installation of a production plant for batteries for electric cars in Dunkirk, the fourth in Hauts-de-France, that of the Taiwanese group ProLogium. The management of Orano should communicate on this subject at the time of the Choose France summit, intended to attract foreign projects, the sixth edition of which is scheduled for Monday in Versailles.

“20,000 jobs in the Dunkirk basin”

XTC New Energy Materials specializes in the production of materials for lithium batteries used in particular for electric vehicles. Emmanuel Macron had met his director general, Jiang Long, in Canton, during his visit to China last April. The joint venture between XTC and Orano is presented by the Head of State as “additoinal” of the ProLogium factory, because it will intervene “upstream” of the production of electric batteries.

“Before the end of the decade, we will have more than 20,000 new jobs in the Dunkirk basinsays Emmanuel Macron. We will put the package on skills and training, it is the mother of battles.” In addition to ProLogium, three other battery factories are being designed in France, all in Nord and Pas-de-Calais.