(Stockholm) The Swedish government has set up an inter-ministerial coordination group to monitor the crisis at financially troubled battery maker Northvolt, which is set to cut a quarter of its workforce in Sweden, the Energy Ministry said on Wednesday.
Northvolt announced on Monday that it would cut 1,600 of its 6,500 jobs and freeze development at its main production site in Skelleftea in the north of the country to cope with a tight financial situation.
“The Swedish government is closely following the development of Northvolt and the battery sector in Sweden,” the Ministry of Energy and Industry said in a message to AFP.
“For some time now, a group of state secretaries has been responsible for coordinating work on the Northvolt issue,” he said, mentioning three state secretaries with responsibilities for energy and industry, finance and the labour market.
Among its responsibilities, this group is responsible for “having contacts with local and regional actors and ensuring that the government office is well informed and ready to take action,” he added.
The Swedish government has already warned that it will not come to the rescue of Northvolt’s finances, with Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson saying in mid-September that “it was not intended that the Swedish state [en] become a shareholder”.
Founded in 2016, Northvolt is one of Europe’s great hopes in terms of batteries at a time when Europe is trying to catch up with Asian giants, Chinese (CATL, BYD) and Korean (LG) in particular.
But the group has accumulated production delays in recent months and has decided to refocus its activity on the sole production of battery cells, abandoning the rest of the production chain (production of cathodes, recycling, etc.).