Li-ion battery recycling company Li-Cycle reported revenue of $8.7 million for the quarter ended April 30, 2022, doubling the previous quarter.
Li-Cycle said the increase in revenue, driven by product sales and higher lithium prices, was up 29 times from a year earlier, while its operating expenses also increased to $30 million, six times the $5.6 million in the same period last year.
This resulted in a net loss of $20.7 million for the quarter, up 165% year over year.
The company is in the business of recycling lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage, and its two-step process can achieve a 95 percent recovery rate. Recently, they opened their third recycling plant, "Spoke" in Arizona, USA. The Spoke plant processes battery scrap and end-of-life batteries, sending the resulting material to a recycling center (Hub) in New York, which will open in 2023, to separate these materials into a series of key raw materials for the production of new lithium ion battery.
Li-Cycle expects that the energy storage sector will be a major player in the supply of waste materials and recycled materials produced off-take.
In the most recent quarter, Li-Cycle signed long-term agreements with LG and Glencore as their preferred lithium-ion battery recycling partner. The two companies will supply raw materials and waste to Li-Cycle's center, and Glencore will also supply chemicals when its recycling center opens. In addition, LG and Glencore will also enter into an off-take agreement to purchase some of the battery-grade products Li-Cycle manufactures at its Rochester recycling center.
"We continue to implement our Spoke & Hub network strategy, and we achieved significant operational, commercial and financial success this quarter," said Li-Cycle President.
"Strategically, we are positioning Li-Cycle as a leader in the recovery and supply of key battery materials, in line with the industry's long-term growth trends."
Li-Cycle, which went public on the New York Stock Exchange last August, ended the second quarter with $509.3 million in funding, a figure it expects to rise after a combined $250 million from LG and Glencore. to $760 million.
In addition, Li-Cycle plans to open the Spoke plant in Europe (Norway and Germany) in the first half of 2023, and by the end of next year is expected to have a recycling capacity of 65,000 tons per year, which is equivalent to recycling about 13GWh of battery materials.
