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Albemarle (ALB) Opens Battery Materials Innovation Center

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Albemarle Corporation (ALB - Free Report) announced the opening of its Battery Materials Innovation Center (“BMIC”) located at its Kings Mountain, NC, facility. The BMIC is projected to be fully operational this month and support Albemarle's lithium hydroxide, lithium carbonate and advanced energy storage materials growth platforms.

The BMIC is equipped to facilitate synthesis of new materials, material properties characterization and analysis, material scale-up capabilities as well as material integration into battery cells for performance testing.

The site includes a dry room with a multi-layer pouch cell line that can manufacture cell-phone sized batteries to show critical aspects of battery performance and speed up transition of new products to customers.

The lab will also create lithium metal anode technologies, which will increase battery energy density by using advanced lithium metal rolling to achieve lithium foils 20 microns thin. The team intends to feature lithium foils as thin as 3-5 microns using new technologies presently being developed.

Shares of Albemarle have surged 114.4% in the past year compared with 46.9% rally of the industry.

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Albemarle, in its last earnings call, stated that it expects its performance for full-year 2021 to improve modestly on a year-over-year basis on a sustained recovery in global economic activities.

The company expects net sales for 2021 between $3.2 billion and $3.3 billion. Moreover, adjusted EBITDA for the year has been forecast in the range of $810-$860 million. Albemarle also continues to see adjusted earnings per share in the band of $3.25-$3.65 for 2021.

 

Zacks Rank & Key Picks

Albemarle currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Some better-ranked stocks in the basic materials space are Nucor Corporation (NUE - Free Report) , Olin Corporation (OLN - Free Report) and Cabot Corporation (CBT - Free Report) .

Nucor has a projected earnings growth rate of around 344.9% for the current year. The company’s shares have surged 131.7% in a year. It currently flaunts a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Olin has an expected earnings growth rate of around 506.7% for the current year. The company’s shares have skyrocketed 309.3% in the past year. It currently sports a Zacks Rank #1.

Cabot has an expected earnings growth rate of around 137.5% for the current fiscal. The company’s shares have surged 53.8% in the past year. It currently flaunts a Zacks Rank #1.

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