A joint venture between Silox India and Runaya is mapping a 60,000-tonne-per-year battery recycling facility in Andhra Pradesh, sized at ₹60,000 crore. The build-out, announced this week, targets feedstock from India's fast-growing lithium-ion supply chain.

The facility would process end-of-life lithium-ion batteries from electric vehicles, consumer electronics, and stationary storage, recovering cobalt, nickel, lithium, and copper. At 60,000 tpy, the planned capacity ranks among the largest single-site announcements in India to date.

For Silox India, the project extends a downstream play into the battery materials stream. Runaya brings metallurgical and refining capability. The JV structure splits capex on a project whose ₹60,000 crore price tag hasn't been broken into phases or financing instruments in any public filing.

Where does this fit in India's recycling pipeline?

India's formal battery recycling sector sits at an inflection point. Federal EV adoption targets, the PLI scheme for advanced chemistry cells, and tightened Extended Producer Responsibility rules have pushed formal recyclers to scale. Most announced capacity, however, remains on paper. The Silox-Runaya project joins a queue that includes Lohum, Attero, Tata Chemicals' Tirupati site, and a handful of global players setting up Indian footprint.

Why Andhra Pradesh

The state has courted lithium-ion cell and component makers with subsidized land near Visakhapatnam and Tirupati, and sits close to the southern automotive cluster that includes Hyundai, Kia, and the Tamil Nadu-Odisha EV corridor. A recycler co-located with cell makers cuts logistics on hazardous scrap and shortens the loop between discharge and black mass recovery.

What changes for practitioners

For cell makers and OEMs, the operational question is feedstock security. Sixty thousand tonnes of black mass output, if hit at design throughput, would feed directly into India's planned cathode active material capacity. It'd also give the JV leverage in long-term offtake contracts as cell manufacturers scramble to qualify recycled content under incoming EU and U.S. rules.

For competing recyclers, the announcement tightens the race. India runs roughly 30,000 to 40,000 tpy of formal battery recycling capacity today across Attero, Lohum, and a handful of others, with most sites well below nameplate. A single 60,000-tpy site would more than double that figure.

Status check

This is an announced project, not a permitted or under-construction one. The venture still needs environmental clearance from the Andhra Pradesh State Pollution Control Board, consent to establish and operate under the Hazardous Waste Management Rules, and a power allocation. Land acquisition details and offtake agreements with cell makers and OEMs remain undisclosed.

The next milestone to track is the environmental clearance filing and a Phase 1 commissioning date. Until those land, the 60,000-tonne figure sits in the same announced-but-unbuilt column as most of India's headline recycling numbers.