Nickel Industries has acquired a 10% stake in the Indonesian HPAL operation from Shanghai Decent.

Australian nickel developer Nickel Industries has invested US$270M in acquiring the 10% stake in PT Huayue Nickel Cobalt (PT HNC) from Shanghai Decent Investment, a subsidiary of Tsingshan. The high-pressure acid leach (HPAL) facility is located at the Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park (IMIP) and has the capacity to produce 60ktpy Ni and 6-8ktpy Co-in-MHP.  

It was the second HPAL to be commissioned in the country, becoming fully operational at the end of 2021 after first trial production and shipped its first MHP to China in February 2022. By mid-2022, the plant was reported to be operating at full nameplate capacity. PT HNC is supplied with limonite ore by an existing deal with Nickel Industries, which operates the nearby Hengjaya mine. There are plans to make the plant fully integrated by converting MHP into nickel sulphate, but in the meantime, MHP is shipped to China for onward processing. 

As part of the same announcement, Nickel Industries, which owns several rotary kiln electric furnace (RKEF) lines across Indonesia’s major nickel production centres, revealed it has taken an additional 10% in the Oracle nickel project extending its share in the operation to 80%. The company is also developing the Excelsior Nickel/Cobalt (ENC) project in Morowali in collaboration with Shanghai Decent. This HPAL is being designed with capacity to produce 72ktpy Ni-in-MHP, with the potential to double this capacity. 

Project Blue expects production of nickel intermediates from Indonesia to grow by 26%py over the next five years. This enormous growth will be driven by demand from the EV battery sector and investment made by Chinese OEMs involved along the battery value chain.