Livent Hosts Groundbreaking Ceremony for Construction of Additional Lithium Hydroxide Production Facilities in Bessemer City, North Carolina

BESSEMER CITY, N.C., Oct. 29, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Livent Corporation LTHM is pleased to announce that it will host a groundbreaking ceremony on Wednesday, October 30, 2019, at its manufacturing plant in Bessemer City, North Carolina, for the construction of additional lithium hydroxide production facilities.  The expansion project is expected to enable Livent to increase its production of lithium hydroxide by 5,000 metric tons per year.  Lithium hydroxide is an essential component of the advanced lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles as well as in high performance industrial greases and other applications.  Livent's investment is expected to create up to 30 new high-quality, full-time jobs at its Bessemer City plant and up to 85 construction jobs.  The project is expected to contribute $16 to $18 million of local economic value during the construction phase and start-up in late 2020. 

"We are grateful for the continued support and collaboration of the local and state government in North Carolina for helping make this expansion possible.  Livent is proud to invest in creating new jobs and economic activity in the U.S., and specifically in Bessemer City, which has been a valued partner to us for decades.  Bessemer City is one of the cornerstones of Livent's business and is becoming increasingly more important to many of our customers who want the flexibility of sourcing their lithium products from the Western hemisphere," said Paul Graves, president and chief executive officer of Livent.

Livent currently has about 240 employees in Bessemer City and additional sales and operations personnel in Charlotte.  Many local Livent employees will attend the by-invitation-only groundbreaking ceremony on Wednesday morning, joining municipal and state government leaders, plant managers and Livent corporate executives.   

Barbara Fochtman, Livent's global head of manufacturing and operations, commented, "Many of our Bessemer City employees are actively engaged in the community and are excited about the opportunities our expansion will provide.  Since the 1950s, the site has been a key contributor to many of the engineering breakthroughs that underpin modern life.  Livent is committed to ensuring that Bessemer City remains an important part of the global revolution in electric vehicles and lithium technology innovation." 

About Livent
For more than six decades, Livent has partnered with its customers to safely and sustainably use lithium to power the world. Livent is one of only a small number of companies with the capability, reputation, and know-how to produce high-quality finished lithium compounds that are helping meet the growing demand for lithium. The company has one of the broadest product portfolios in the industry, powering demand for green energy, modern mobility, the mobile economy, and specialized innovations, including light alloys and lubricants. Livent employs approximately 800 people throughout the world and operates manufacturing sites in the United States, England, India, China and Argentina. For more information, visit livent.com. 

Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: Certain statements in this news release are forward-looking statements.  In some cases, you can identify these statements by forward-looking words such as "may," "might," "will," "should," "expects," "intends," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "estimates," "predicts," "potential," or "continue," the negative of these terms and other comparable terminology. These forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions about Livent, may include projections of Livent's future financial performance, Livent's anticipated growth strategies and anticipated trends in Livent's business. These statements are only predictions based on Livent's current expectations and projections about future events. There are important factors that could cause Livent's actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements to differ materially from the results, level of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements, including a decline in the growth in demand for electric vehicles; adverse global economic conditions; the success of Livent's research and development efforts; volatility in the price for performance lithium compounds; risks relating to Livent's planned production expansion and related capital expenditures; reduced customer demand, or delays in growth of customer demand, for higher performance lithium compounds, the potential development and adoption of battery technologies that do not rely on performance lithium compounds as an input; risks inherent in international operations and sales, including political, financial and operational risks specific to Argentina, China and other countries where Livent has active operations; customer concentration and the possible loss of, or significant reduction in orders from, large customers; failure to satisfy customer quality standards; fluctuations in the price of energy and certain raw materials; failure to achieve the expected benefits of Livent's separation from FMC as well as the other factors described under the caption entitled "Risk Factors" in Livent's 2018 Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on February 28, 2019, the first quarter 2019 Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on May 8, 2019, and the second quarter 2019 Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on August 7, 2019. Although Livent believes the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, Livent cannot guarantee future results, level of activity, performance or achievements. Moreover, neither Livent nor any other person assumes responsibility for the accuracy and completeness of any of these forward-looking statements. Livent is under no duty to update any of these forward-looking statements after the date of this news release to conform its prior statements to actual results or revised expectations.

Media contact: Juan Carlos Cruz +1.215.299.6170
juan.carlos.cruz@livent.com 

Investor contact: Daniel Rosen +1.215.299.6208
daniel.rosen@livent.com 

SOURCE Livent Corporation