Bernadette Christina, Gayatri Suroyo

JAKARTA, Reuters – South Korea’s LG Energy Solution broke ground Wednesday on Indonesian nickel processing plants. This was part of its $9.8 billion investment to create electric vehicle batteries in Indonesia.

LGES officials informed Joko Widodo, Indonesian president, that the company would build a $3.5B smelter capable of producing 150,000 tonnes per year. The ceremony was held in Batang, Central Java. It was live broadcast.

The Batang Park factory will be built for $2.4 billion to manufacture 220,000 tonnes each of precursor and 42,000 tonnes per year of cathode. This will supply the raw material needed to construct the $3.6B, 200 gigawatt-hours industrial battery cell plant at Karawang in West Java.

LGES President Lee Bang Soo announced that Aneka Tambang (Antam), an Indonesian state mining company, and LGES have signed an agreement to jointly invest $300 million in a Nickel Mine in Halmahera. This mine will produce 16 million tonnes nickel ore.

Indonesia boasts the most extensive nickel resources in the world. It is aiming to grow its position as a producer of major nickel-based products.

To attract foreign capital to help develop the downstream sector, Indonesia ended its exports of nickelore in 2020. Jokowi stated that he would like to repeat this strategy with other natural resources such as unprocessed iron ore and bauxite.

LGES and Hyundai Motor Group started construction in September 2021 of a Bekasi plant worth $1.1 billion, which will also make EV batteries.