Orano - Annual Activity Report 2024 45 SITUATION AND ACTIVITIES OF THE COMPANY AND ITS SUBSIDIARIES DURING THE PAST FINANCIAL YEAR 2 The group’s businesses Battery Program In 2020, Orano decided to launch the “battery recycling” project by conducting R&D work with CEA Liten to develop an innovative process for recycling Lithium-ion electric vehicle batteries. A joint research laboratory was created in January 2020, located on the CEA site in Grenoble (France). The investigations and initial results, as well as market trends favorable to the recycling of electric vehicle batteries, led to the group’s decision to move to pre-industrial scale in mid-2021, with the installation of two industrial pretreatment and hydrometallurgy pilots at the Centre d’innovation de métallurgie extractive (CIME) at Orano’s site in Bessines-sur-Gartempe (France). The aim is to validate the robustness of the process with a view to industrial scale-up from 2027, with the support of industrial partners in the battery ecosystem. The Battery Program changed in the first quarter of 2022, with initial discussions with XTC New Energy, a subsidiary of XTC, a leader in the manufacture of cathode active materials (CAM) and their precursors (P-CAM). After a memorandum of understanding in February 2022, joint venture agreements were signed with XTC New Energy on May 16, 2023, with a view to creating a CAM JV majority-owned by XTC New Energy, and a P-CAM JV majority-owned by Orano. The choice of site locations focused on Dunkerque (Nord, Hauts-deFrance), which will also be the site of the Orano hydrometallurgical recycling plant. These three plants (P-CAM, CAM, recycling) will contribute to the creation of a complete and sustainable electric battery value chain, and will produce at full capacity enough battery materials to equip more than one million electric vehicles per year. This project in the Dunkerque region was the subject of a preliminary consultation, under the aegis of the National Commission for Public Debate (CNDP), from February 5 to March 31, 2024. The Commission published its assessment of this consultation phase on April 30, 2024. The project entered the continuing consultation phase on November 7, 2024. In a market context that has not yet stabilized, the Battery Program is continuing its discussions with ecosystem players to establish industrial and commercial partnerships that guarantee the robustness of the model. BATTERY RECYCLING PROCESS Source: Orano Collection and dismantling of end-of-life batteries Module treatment Material recovery and separation Precursors of cathode active materials (P-CAM) manufacture Manufacture of cathode active materials (CAM) Manufacture of new battery components Batteries (scraps and/or end-of-life batteries) Lithium Cobalt Nickel Manganese Graphite
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