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Merdeka Battery to build $1.8b HPAL nickel processing plant
Merdeka Battery Materials has signed an agreement to build a $1.8 billion high-pressure acid leach (HPAL) processing plant at Central Sulawesi's Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park, to start operating by mid-2026.
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Sunlight streams into Merdeka Battery Materials’ smelter, which uses the rotary kiln-electric furnace (RKEF) process, at Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park (IMIP) in Morowali, Central Sulawesi, in this undated photograph. (Merdeka Battery Materials/-)
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erdeka Battery Materials (MBMA), the nickel processing unit of miner Merdeka Copper Gold, has signed an agreement to build a high-pressure acid leach (HPAL) plant with an investment value of around US$1.8 billion, according to a statement issued on Monday.
The facility, to be developed at Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park (IMIP) in Central Sulawesi and operated by PT Sulawesi Nickel Cobalt (SLNC), will have an annual production capacity of 90,000 tonnes of mixed hydroxide precipitate (MHP).
MHP is a key input for processing into nickel and cobalt, crucial elements for electric vehicle batteries.
Merdeka Battery began constructing the HPAL plant in January toward an operation start date in 18 months.
The nickel producer’s affiliate PT Merdeka Energi Baru owns 50.1 percent of shares in Sulawesi Nickel Cobalt.
“Sulawesi Nickel Cobalt’s HPAL [plant] is MBMA’s strategic initiative to maximize the value of our abundant nickel resources and [is expected to] result in a more than twofold increase in the company’s annual MHP production capacity,” Merdeka Battery Materials president director Teddy Oetomo said in the statement.
“Sulawesi Nickel Cobalt’s partnership shows our commitment to increasing our capacity to provide high-quality battery raw materials and support the government’s downstream policy.”
