ABTC awarded $20M tax credit through DOE

Reno, Nevada-based battery materials recycler American Battery Technology Co. (ABTC) has been selected for an award of approximately $20 million through the Qualifying Advanced Energy Project Credit program (48C).

The award was granted by the U.S. Department of Treasury Internal Revenue Service following a competitive technical and economic review process performed by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), which evaluated the feasibility of applicant facilities to advance the country’s buildout of globally competitive critical material recycling, processing and refining infrastructure.

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“We are proud to have been selected for this highly competitive award, and humbled to have been chosen within a program where less than one-tenth of the requested funds were ultimately selected for an award,” ABTC CEO Ryan Melsert says in a news release. “These funds will facilitate the acceleration of the buildout and start of operations of our commercial-scale hydrometallurgy-based recycled battery materials processing and refinement systems to increase the overall capacity for domestic critical mineral manufacturing.”

ABTC says it is commercializing its recycling process that utilizes an upfront strategic demanufacturing process, followed by a targeted chemical extraction train in order to recover battery materials with high yields, low costs and with a low environmental footprint.

The $20 million award can be used both for the reimbursement of capital expenditures spent to date and for equipment and infrastructure for additional value-add operations at the company’s battery recycling facility in the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center (TRIC) in Storey County, Nevada. Combined with the company’s previously awarded DOE grants totaling over $70 million, the funds support investment in its efforts to build out a domestically sourced circular supply chain for battery metals.

Additionally, the company says it is working to foster improved access to jobs for members of the community, including underrepresented individuals and those facing barriers to employment, by leveraging DOE investments and through partnerships with workforce development and government agencies.

In collaboration with and support from strategic partners such as the University of Nevada, Reno, the Nevada Battery Coalition, the Nevada’s Governor’s Office of Economic Development, the Nevada Department of Employment Training and Rehabilitation and the Governor’s Office of Workforce Innovation, ABTC says it is actively engaged and involved in positioning Nevada as a leader in the battery metals supply chain in North America.

New board member announced

ABTC recently announced that financial industry veteran Susan Yun Lee joined its board of directors as of April 1. Julie Blunden, who was first appointed to the company’s board in March 2022, stepped down from her role March 31.

“We are excited to welcome Susan to the ABTC board,” ABTC Chairman Rick Fezell says. “Her expertise in financial markets will be invaluable in reinforcing ABTC’s strong culture of fiscal stewardship.”

Lee is a multi-asset class allocator with over 20 years of combined experience advising institutions on investments in funds, private companies, public stocks, options and derivatives across public equities, private equity, venture capital, real assets, credit, fixed income and hedge fund strategies.

“We are at a pivotal inflection point of our growth within ABTC and now is the ideal time to bring in new expertise within the financial markets that can help drive our long-term growth,” Melsert says. “We spent several months evaluating numerous candidates, and Susan’s breadth and depth of experiences in public and private investments, capital markets and her strong fiduciary diligence are the exact skills that we need as we contract the strategic offtake of our recycled and primary metal products and as we continue to expand our commercial-scale operations.”

Lee currently serves as the chief investment officer of a foundation and as a partner with White Road Capital. She began her career with strategy roles with Bain & Co. and The Walt Disney Co. and has worked as a partner at Angeles Investment Advisors, an investment advisory firm for institutional investors, where she steered the firm’s private equity division and managed its portfolio. She also served as a private equity investor at Black Canyon Capital and Vintage Capital Partners before managing investment assets and a $2.5 billion portfolio for The Board Foundations and family office.

Lee currently is an independent board director for the Nasdaq-listed Crescent Capital BDC and Crescent Private Credit Income Corp. She has a Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School, where she earned honors and was a Toigo Fellow, and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Stanford University.

“I’m greatly looking forward to joining the ABTC team at such an exciting time in the rapidly growing domestic battery critical minerals industry,” Lee says. “There are a plethora of strategic partnership and investment opportunities in front of ABTC, and I’m excited to bring my experiences in the financial markets to help evaluate these opportunities and drive the company’s growth forward.”