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Indonesia lacks HPAL smelters to make battery materials
Despite the construction of numerous nickel smelters in Indonesia over the past years, the country lacks facilities to produce electric vehicle (EV) batteries, an Industry Ministry official has explained.
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This stock photo shows a worker at a production process of nickel ore at a smelter in Sorowako, South Sulawesi, on Aug. 1, 2019. (Shutterstock/Kaisarmuda)
D
espite the construction of numerous nickel smelters in Indonesia over the past years, the country lacks facilities to produce electric vehicle (EV) battery materials, an Industry Ministry official has explained.
More investment in the downstream nickel sector is needed to overcome a lack of high-pressure acid leaching (HPAL) smelters, according to the Industry Ministry’s Metal, Machinery, Transportation Equipment and Electronics Industries Director General Taufiek Bawazier.
HPAL facilities produce mixed hydroxide precipitate (MHP), an intermediate nickel product, as well as nickel sulfate and cobalt sulfate as final products.
Only three nickel processing companies operating in the country had invested in HPAL smelters, Taufiek said on Thursday during a meeting with House of Representatives Commission VII, which oversees energy and technology policy.
However, according to data from the Indonesian Nickel Miners Association (APNI), there were only two operational hydrometallurgy facilities in Indonesia in 2022: one operated by PT Halmahera Persada Lygend (Harita Group) to process 7.82 million tonnes per year and the other by PT Gebe Industri Nickel to process 1.32 million tonnes per year.
"This [industry] needs further development to [address] the situation in order to go further downstream, which requires support from Commission VII, because investment is absolutely needed," he said
Indonesia is the world's largest nickel producer with an output of 1 million tonnes in 2021. However, currently, the country mostly processes nickel ore of the saprolite type. More HPAL smelters would allow for processing more limonite nickel.
