Zhongwei builds $10.5 billion battery industrial park in Indonesia

On Oct. 30, Chinese battery materials maker Zhongwei New Materials Co, plans to build a $10.5 billion battery industrial park in Indonesia, according to Indonesian media reports.Magdalena, director of Zhongwei Indonesia, said that this industrial park, with a total investment of 10.5 billion U.S. dollars, will be divided into three phases, has been awarded by the Indonesian government as a national strategic project, and the Indonesian government will provide investment incentives, including land, which requires 3,000 to 5,000 hectares of land, and the location of the project is still in the process of searching for a location, and the park in the planning of the battery industry chain is welcome to welcome partners together to move in. The project site is still under search, and this planned park welcomes partners in the battery industry chain to move in together.

Founded in September 2014, Zhongwei shares is a holding subsidiary of Hunan Zhongwei Holding Group Co., Ltd, engaged in lithium battery anode material precursor business, in December 2020 listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. With the trend of high nickelization and steady growth in demand for ternary batteries, Zhongwei's ternary precursor market share in the first half of 2023 was 27%, with total shipments exceeding 120,000 tons, and shipments from 2020 to the present ranked first in the industry. Zhongwei shares has invested Rp 32.1 trillion in Indonesia since 2021, and has constructed nickel processing smelters in Morowali, North Morowali, Widabe and Badulijin respectively.

Indonesia announced a ban on nickel exports in 2020, hoping to capitalize on the rich nickel resources it possesses, coupled with a series of investment incentives, to attract more electric vehicle manufacturers and battery producers to invest and land in Indonesia, and establish an integrated battery industry and electric vehicle ecosystem. In the past 10 years, dozens of Chinese companies, led by Qingshan, have invested in Indonesia's nickel industry, which has not only given China a huge advantage in the supply chain of stainless steel and raw materials for new energy batteries, but also upgraded the Indonesian nickel industry from simply exporting raw ore to a historic leap in local downstream smelting, and Indonesia has gained huge added value in the mining industry, with Chinese companies accumulatively investing at least 142 percent of their total investment in the construction of the local nickel industry from 2012 to 2022. nickel industry construction has invested $14.2 billion, building Indonesia's nickel ore smelting industry chain from scratch, and boosting Indonesia's nickel exports from $3.3 billion in 2017 to $33.8 billion in 2022.

Oct 20, 2024 Under the leadership of Indonesia's new president Prabowo, Indonesia will still adhere to the industrial policy of downstreaming the mining industry, and there are huge opportunities for investment in the industry of deep processing of minerals in Indonesia in the future.