According to South Korean media reports, the “K battery alliance” participated by South Korea LG new energy Co., Ltd. plans to invest in Indonesia’s nickel resource industry chain. The idea is that will invest US $9 billion to lay out the whole industrial chain in Indonesia, from the smelting and refining of raw material nickel to the manufacturing of precursor and cathode materials, battery packs and finished product assembly
The Indonesian government also confirmed on April 18 that on April 14, an alliance composed of LG new energy company, LG Chemical Company, LX international company, POSCO holdings and other Korean companies signed investment agreements with antam, an Indonesian nickel mining company, and IBC, an Indonesian battery company, to build a battery industry value chain Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co.Ltd(603799) as an in-depth partner of LG Chemical, POSCO holdings and other companies, it is also a participant in the investment plan
However, this agreement is conducted in a “non binding” manner that is not legally binding. All parties need to conduct follow-up negotiations on specific contents such as share relationship and business structure. It is expected that it will take some time before the final signing.
It is understood that the “K battery alliance” is promoted by the Korean government to support enterprises to accelerate the development of NCMA (nickel, cobalt, manganese, aluminum) batteries, all solid state batteries, lithium sulfur batteries and other new generation batteries. High nickel is regarded as a major direction of lithium battery technology upgrading.
At present, Korean battery enterprises mainly produce “high nickel batteries” with nickel content of more than 80%, and are approaching the goal of nickel content of more than 90%. SNE research, a market research firm, predicts that by 2030, the nickel demand of LG new energy, sko and Samsung SDI alone will reach 648000 tons, more than seven times that of this year.
Indonesia is rich in lithium and nickel resources. It has the world’s largest nickel ore reserves and production, and it is expected that the continuous growth of reserves and production in the future will also come from Indonesia. Compared with the data released by the US Geological Survey from 2015 to 2020, the global reserves increased by about 17 million tons in five years, and Indonesia increased by 16.5 million tons. In addition, its lithium storage capacity is about 21 million tons, ranking first in the world.
under the background of the high price of upstream resources for a long time, building and investing in Indonesia has become the common choice of many lithium battery manufacturers, lithium battery material suppliers and even vehicle manufacturers
On April 15, Contemporary Amperex Technology Co.Limited(300750) announced that the holding subsidiary plans to invest and build a power battery industry chain project in Indonesia with no more than US $5.968 billion, including the integration of mining, smelting, precursor, cathode, battery and battery recycling industries. The joint venture construction projects include nickel ore development projects, pyrometallurgy projects, hydrometallurgy projects, battery recycling projects, battery material projects and battery manufacturing projects.
In addition, Gem Co.Ltd(002340) , Ningbo Ronbay New Energy Technology Co.Ltd(688005) have invested in nickel resource projects in Indonesia; Hyundai Motor Corporation of Korea and LG new energy are building a 10gwh battery cooperation factory in Indonesia; Hon Hai also decided to invest $8 billion to produce electric vehicles in Indonesia.
