China’s Weiming Group has signed a deal to invest in a USD 400M project to produce nickel matte in Indonesia, becoming the latest Chinese firm to enter the Southeast Asia country’s battery supply chain.
Weiming said that the project, in which it will partner with a company called Indigo, would produce 40,000 tonnes per year of nickel matte, an intermediate product that can be used to make battery-grade nickel for electric vehicles (EVs) or stainless steel.
Weiming said the Indigo tie-up would also focus on the development of low-grade nickel ore and tailings utilization technology. Mine tailings are the crushed remnants of ore.
Weiming is based in Wenzhou in China’s Zhejiang province, the same city that is home to top global nickel producer Tsingshan Holding Group.
