China’s largest cobalt producer, Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co. Ltd., has announced a shift in focus from its previous plan of pursuing a nickel-manganese-cobalt cathode material project, according to S&P. Instead, the company will concentrate on building a nickel sulphate plant in Indonesia, and battery recycling projects in China.
This move will allow Huayou to expand its presence in Indonesia, currently one of the world’s leading nickel producers, and to diversify its nickel-manganese-cobalt cathode (NMC) material industrial chain outside of China.
This news comes a month after Huayou announced plans to invest US$1.5B into a cathode factory in Hungary, Huayou’s first European factory, and after forming a joint venture with LG Energy Solution in South Korea to recycle used cells for stable raw material supply in the electric vehicle market.
Huayou Cobalt is actively making concentrated efforts on the upstream and downstream ends of battery production.
In Indonesia, the company will focus on constructing a battery-grade nickel sulphate project on Halmahera Island in North Maluku, with a proposed annual production capacity of 50,000 metric tons. Since 2018, the company has been actively increasing its access to nickel resources in Indonesia to better guarantee its supply.
Additionally, Huayou will establish a battery recycling project in China’s Jiangsu province, with a processing capacity of 15,000tpa. The project will involve the production of black mass, shot copper, and aluminum ingots from battery electrodes, battery stacks, and liquid-filled cells.
Furthermore, the company will set up another black mass utilization project in China’s Zhejiang province, with a capacity of 12,000tpa. This project will produce nickel sulphate, cobalt sulfate, lithium carbonate, and manganese sulphate.
In 2021, Huayou Cobalt announced its plans to establish a nickel sulphate project with a capacity of 50,000tpa, a NMC precursor project with a capacity of 100,000tpa, and a high-nickel NMC materials project with a capacity of 50,000tpa in China’s Guangxi region.
Huayou Cobalt stated in the S&P article that these new plans align with China’s industrial development strategy and will help to increase the company’s raw material supply while reducing production costs, a recurring theme and growing concern as many countries try to ensure their own access to these critical materials.
