Northvolt AB, the Swedish battery maker that counts BMW, Volvo Car and Volkswagen among its clients, has secured a $5 billion green loan to bolster production and expand recycling efforts.

The package, among the largest green loans on record, comes as Europe’s only major homegrown battery maker has fallen behind production milestones. The company, which has said it eventually wants to go public, is working on projects including setting up new cell plants in Germany and Canada.

Northvolt is central for European efforts to establish an electric-vehicle supply chain that can rival Asia and the US. The company plans to use the money to expand production at its main Swedish factory in Skelleftea and grow an adjacent recycling plant.

That facility recovers battery-grade metals, enabling Northvolt to lower its carbon footprint and set up circular production in a way that so far hasn’t existed outside Asia, the company said Tuesday.

“This financing is a milestone for the European energy transition,” said Northvolt Chief Executive Officer Peter Carlsson.

The deal is non-recourse financing, meaning that repayment would come from the project’s earnings and not from Northvolt’s assets. It’s guaranteed by export credit agencies and provided by 23 commercial banks in addition to the European Investment Bank and the Nordic Investment Bank.

A significant portion of the loan is covered “with certain guarantees combined with direct funding” from the Swedish National Debt Office, Euler Hermes, the Export-Import Bank of Korea, Japan’s Nippon Export and Investment Insurance, or NEXI, and the Korea Trade Insurance Corporation, Northvolt said.

The manufacturer is no stranger to getting support from export credit agencies. In 2020, it obtained a $1.6 billion financing with guarantees from NEXI, Bpifrance, and Euler Hermes — debt it now refinanced with the latest deal. At least 38 ECA-backed loans worth more than €19 billion were completed for European borrowers last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Northvolt has secured billions in equity and debt to fuel its expansion in Europe and North America, bolstered by $55 billion in orders from automotive clients. The company earlier this month won European Union approval for subsidies to build a factory in Germany and has plans to set up a C$7 billion ($5.2 billion) plant in Canada. The company has no immediate plans to launch an initial public offering, according to the CEO.

“At this point in time it’s still a fairly closed market for IPOs,” Carlsson said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. “We need to ensure that we have a sufficient runway for when the market opens and that’s what we continue to work on.”