German chemicals giant BASF said it would review a major investment push to build a global manufacturing network for battery materials amid a downturn in the electric-vehicles segment, according to a news report.
“Future investments will be subject to a critical review and a new assessment,” a company spokesperson was quoted as saying by weekly magazine WirtschaftsWoche on Thursday.
BASF has previously said that ambitions for a global supply network for cathode materials for electric-vehicle batteries was one of two major investment initiatives, the other being a new 10 billion-euro ($10.8 billion) chemical complex in China.
In December last year, BASF picked the battery chemicals unit alongside two other divisions to be given greater autonomy.
A BASF partner, French miner Eramet, said last month the two companies had cancelled a $2.6 billion joint investment in a refining complex in Indonesia to make nickel and cobalt for batteries.
(Reporting by Ludwig Burger and Patricia Weiss, Editing by Rachel More)
