Veolia opens Grand Est facility to recover metals from EV batteries
A new facility in France’s Grand Est region will process up to 7,000 tonnes of battery black mass a year, extracting cobalt, nickel and copper for European markets. Veolia says the site is the first European project to use its proprietary hydrometallurgy technologies to process black mass from across Europe.
By Money Talk·November 12, 2026·2 min read·263 reads
The plant will take in black mass from France, the United Kingdom and Switzerland. Its process separates the material from dismantled batteries and recovers metals for use in the automotive, construction and defense sectors. Veolia says the annual capacity is equivalent to recycling 20,000 tonnes of batteries.
The company launched the project with Veolia CEO Estelle Brachlianoff, European Commission Executive Vice-President Stéphane Séjourné and Grand Est Region President Franck Leroy. Brachlianoff said the facility could help keep valuable resources in Europe, supplying the metallurgy sector now and potentially battery production in the future.
Veolia cited expectations that nearly 700,000 tonnes of batteries will be recycled in Europe within five years, yielding more than €1 billion worth of recoverable metals. The company said black mass is currently being exported to Asia amid competition from outside Europe.
Veolia is also deploying battery-dismantling projects in the United Kingdom, Belgium and Slovenia. These are intended to complement the Grand Est plant, which handles processing further down the recycling chain. Séjourné said EU measures including the Battery Regulation, the Industrial Accelerator Act and the forthcoming Circular Economy Act are intended to support European production and reduce reliance on imported strategic raw materials. Leroy said the region had supported the project from its outset.
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first!