Teesside has been officially selected as the site for a £600m lithium refinery.
Green Lithium, backed by commodity trading company Trafigura, has chosen Teesport, the UK’s fifth largest port, and wants to have the plant up and running by 2025.
The facility would process the metal for electric vehicle batteries. So far, Europe does not have a lithium processing refinery and is reliant on China.
The decision comes despite uncertainty over the future of battery start-up Britishvolt. Its planned £3.8bn gigafactory is an hour further north in Blythe.
