Korea Zinc announced on the 18th that it plans to proceed with an investment of 1.5 trillion won in its domestic sites, including Ulsan, by 2029 without any setbacks. The company also stated that it will double its recruitment plan for next year compared to the original.
Korea Zinc is set to invest across various areas including strategic mineral production, resource recycling, environmental enhancement, and safety infrastructure. Specifically, the company will invest 140 billion won to establish a germanium plant and 55.7 billion won to build a gallium recovery process. With these investments, Korea Zinc aims to produce 12 tons of germanium and supply 15 tons of gallium annually starting in 2028. Given the current prices of germanium and gallium are $3,500 and $920 per kilogram respectively, the company expects to generate annual profits of around 60 billion won.
Additionally, to increase the production of the strategic mineral bismuth by 150%, the company plans to invest 30 billion won in facility upgrades by next year. Currently, Korea Zinc has a production capacity of 1,000 tons of bismuth per year and aims to increase it to 1,500 tons.
For research and development efforts to maintain a technological advantage, Korea Zinc will invest 150 billion won by 2028. This includes projects like the construction of the Songdo R&D Center, which is expected to begin in the first half of next year, as well as research in core technologies such as materials, resource recycling, energy, artificial intelligence (AI), and robotics.
In the resource recycling business, the company plans to invest 50 billion won by 2027 to expand its lead battery crushing facilities. Through this, Korea Zinc intends to crush 200,000 tons of lead batteries annually and recycle waste batteries to produce lead.
In the materials business, the company plans to invest 520 billion won by next year to build a nickel smelter. This will allow them to produce 42,600 tons of nickel for secondary batteries annually starting in 2027. Additionally, they plan to invest 130 billion won to expand an oxygen plant to increase production from 2027 onwards.
For environmental efforts, they plan to complete the construction of a self-dumping facility, into which they have been investing 50 billion won since last year, and begin trial operations in 2026 to manage waste generated from the smelting process.
In the safety domain, Korea Zinc will build an integrated control center from the basement to eight floors above ground at a cost of 180 billion won. This will enhance real-time monitoring, control capabilities, and crisis response at its Onsan smelting plant.
Korea Zinc also mentioned that they will double the recruitment of new university graduates next year to meet the demand for human resources in the construction and operation of the U.S. smelting plant, replacement of personnel at the Onsan smelting plant, and construction and operation of new facilities.
The company’s workforce has increased by an average of about 150 employees annually over the past five years. The number of employees, which was 1,396 at the end of 2020, has grown to 2,085 as of December 2025.
A representative from Korea Zinc stated, “While we are actively investing in the U.S. smelting plant, we are equally committed to making unshakeable domestic investments to secure future growth engines.”