September 15, 2026 • 3 min read
Partnering with Easpring to make Finland's first cathode active material plant bankable
Building Finland’s first cathode active material plant
Easpring Finland New Materials Oy (EFNM Oy) – a joint venture between Beijing Easpring Material Technology Co. Ltd (70 percent ownership), the Finnish Minerals Group Oy (28.3 percent ownership) and LG Energy Solution Ltd. (1.7 percent) – set out to create a bankable, future-ready cathode active material (CAM) asset that aligns Chinese process know-how with Finnish and EU requirements.
With Société Générale advising on financing, the sponsors and lenders needed an independent, lender-grade view of engineering, design maturity, HSE, compliance, schedule and cost risks before moving forward.
Statistic Cards
of the largest CAM facilities in Europe
Supporting sponsor and lender decision making
Our Worley Consulting experts in the UK, Finland and China supported the project by providing independent technical due diligence (TDD) and lenders’ technical advisory (LTA) services to help sponsors and lenders progress financing with confidence.
Our experts identified and closed gaps between the project’s China-based technology baseline and the standards, approvals and operating expectations required in Europe.
This reduced uncertainty around engineering and regulatory risks. It also provided a shared basis for decision making for sponsors and lenders, and strengthened confidence in European CAM investment.
…close collaboration with established Asian partners who’ve mastered the art of scaling up in their home markets, means translating these processes to Europe will be easier and quicker than starting from scratch.
Dave Oudenijeweme, Senior Director, Battery Materials, Worley
Why this project matters for Europe
The Kotka CAM plant is the type of project Europe needs to meet its Net Zero Industry Act goal: To increase the EU’s manufacturing capacity for net zero technologies and their key components.
It forms part of the cluster strategy in the Kymenlaakso region, one of the largest collections of battery material plants in Europe aimed to strengthen the Finnish and European battery value chain.
In addition, the project will create hundreds of jobs for the region and bring together China’s process know-how with European standards to accelerate the global energy transition.
