Ningde Times Lays Out $1.18 Billion Battery Plant in Indonesia

On October 16th, in the presence of the Deputy Minister of State Enterprise, Indonesia Battery Group and CBL, a subsidiary of Ningde Times, established a joint venture with an investment of approximately US$1.18 billion to build a JV 5 battery manufacturing plant in Karawang, West Java, Indonesia.The plant is expected to begin production in 2027, with a planned annual battery capacity of 15 gigawatt-hours (GWh).

As the world's largest power battery manufacturer, Ningde Times has long been laying out Indonesia in advance.In 2018, Ningde Times and domestic nickel mining giant Qingshan Holding Group reached a cooperation, and Qingshan Holding has since become the first supplier of Ningde Times. Since then, Ningde Times has jointly invested about RMB 1.85 billion with Greenpeace and Qingshan Holdings to build the project of "50,000 tons of precursor raw materials and 20,000 tons of ternary anode materials for high-nickel power ternary materials per year" in Indonesia, and has also developed the largest integrated nickel, chromium, and iron ore resources project in Indonesia in a joint venture with Qingshan Holdings, Huayou Cobalt, and Zhenshi Group. --Widabe Industrial Park Project in Indonesia.

In April 2022, Ningde Times announced that it plans to invest in the construction of a power battery industry chain project in Indonesia, with a total project investment of no more than $6 billion (about RMB 38.02 billion), of which Ningde Times' investment totaled $3.937 billion , .The joint venture construction projects include nickel mine development projects, pyrometallurgical smelting projects, hydrometallurgical smelting projects, battery recycling projects, battery material projects and battery manufacturing projects. Overall, the six sub-projects are centered on nickel mining and battery production. Except for the nickel mine development project, the remaining five projects are all held by Ningde Times. The construction period of the above projects is 5 years. This time, on October 16, 2024, the battery factory signed for a US$1.18 billion investment is exactly part of the overall project investment.

Nickel metal is an important raw material used in the production of stainless steel and ternary lithium batteries. The so-called ternary lithium battery, refers to lithium battery anode contains nickel, cobalt, manganese three elements composed of "ternary precursor". Due to the performance advantages of nickel in improving battery energy density, high nickel batteries are gradually becoming an important development direction of ternary lithium batteries. China's nickel reserves are scarce, with a high degree of dependence on foreign countries. Indonesia is the world's richest nickel resources. U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) data show that in 2020 the world's nickel resource reserves of about 94 million tons, of which Indonesia's resource reserves ranked first, about 21 million tons, accounting for 22%.

In recent years, the Indonesian government has pushed the downstream industrialization policy of nickel ore, together with the development of battery materials, battery production, and electric enterprises, to make Indonesia the center of electric vehicle industry in ASEAN. According to the Indonesian Automotive Industry Association, in 2023, theSales of hybrid vehicles in the country increased 5.2-fold to approximately 54,000 vehicles, while sales of pure electric vehicles rose nearly 701 TP3T to about 17,000 units.The Indonesian government is aiming to sell 50,000 all-electric vehicles by 2024. According to Indonesia's plan, the country will produce 400,000 electric vehicles by 2025, 600,000 electric vehicles by 2030, and 1 million electric vehicles by 2035; and will achieve the goal of universalization of all cars and motorcycles sold in Indonesia as electric vehicles by 2050, in terms of battery production.Indonesia aims to produce EV batteries with a total capacity of 140GWh per year by 2030, which would then account for 4% to 9% of global demand.