Jonas Premfors is the bankruptcy receiver for Northvolt Expansion.
– There are two main tracks, either an industrial activity or some type of data centre, says Jonas Premfors, bankruptcy receiver.
Premfors does not want to make any specific comments on who the interested parties are and cannot divulge whether any of them have a local connection to Skellefteå or Västerbotten.
– It’s an open question what type of industry it may be. I can say that it’s completely different types of businesses but what they have in common is that they’re companies operating within manufacturing, Jonas Premfors says.
When it comes to a potential data centre it is the access to electricity supply that attracts companies.
– It requires an enormous electric utility capacity, which is available at the property, he says.
The bankruptcy receiver describes the property deal as unique and completely without a roadmap. The buildings cover more than 230,000 square metres and the purchaser will get a a substantial area of land, about 140 football pitches.
There are no doubts that a larger business is required to take over the area.
– We have to take into account that the buildings and the land encompasses vast areas. I can imagine that it’s almost too large even for a big international company. Even the big companies we have been in contact with have asked what to do with all the space.
The receiver says that they are open to different solutions and that it is not unimaginable to carve the property into smaller sections. However, that is not a straight-forward process with a property of this size.
– You can carve it up and sell different buildings to different interested parties. There is a lot of legal issues around that and then there are matters regarding water, sewerage and electricity that need to be solved. It requires a dialogue with the municipality and energy companies for that to work. During the bankruptcy, we have had ongoing contact with the local stakeholders.
– There is no roadmap for this type of thing. It's so big that it requires the involvement of many stakeholders in order to pull this off. The municipality has the decision-making power for planning permission, demolition permission and similar. That can throw a spanner in the works but at the same time the municipality can come up with proposals for practicable solutions, it is a give and take situation.
Large parts of Northvolt’s former industrial area is now being sold off. The property that is now for sale can be seen in the background of the photo. The buildings are in different stages of completion.
Environmentally the conditions of this property is better than at Northvolt Ett where the active production was conducted and hazardous substances were handled.
– In this part of the property there has never been any battery manufacturing. There are still environmental law issues. If we look at the property there are piles of excavated material and similar. That needs to be dealt with but it's not something we assess to be an acute problem.
The condition of the properties vary and the construction was abandoned in different stages. But the property manager has continued to maintain the properties even after the bankruptcy.
– It's a sliding scale when we talk about the condition of the properties. Some properties have only had the groundwork done. There are also other buildings in different stages of completion. We have done an inventory of the properties and chosen to complete parts of the construction projects. For example, we have completed a storage building that was not completed at the time of the bankruptcy.
Then there is another building that was just a steel framework. We have disassembled that as it was considered a safety risk.
Northvolt Expansion went bankrupt in October of last year. The construction projects were then abruptly abandoned. In addition to the property there is also an ongoing sale of the unused equipment from the factory.