Indonesia to create firm to build up electric vehicle battery industry

A group of Indonesian state-owned companies will form a venture to make batteries to power electric vehicles, the Mining Industry Indonesia (MIND ID) chief executive said on Tuesday.

Indonesia, the world’s biggest producer of nickel ore, a key component of EV batteries, wants to build an integrated EV industry that will eventually include building the vehicles.

The new venture, called Indonesia Battery Holding, would be formed by state miners MIND ID and Aneka Tambang (ANTAM), state utility Perusahan Listrik Negara (PLN) and state oil company Pertamina, MIND ID Chief Executive Orias Petrus Moedak said.

“We are preparing a concrete cooperation plan, so that the nickel utilisation project can start immediately, to produce batteries,” he told a webinar.

The company would help build an industry that aimed to cover everything from producing chemicals and minerals for batteries to making the units themselves, as well as recycling old batteries, Orias said.

The company would create a partnership with Chinese and Korean firms on two projects valued at $12 billion, Orias said, without giving further details.

Orias said state miner ANTAM would also work on related EV battery projects including high-pressure acid leaching (HPAL) and rotary kiln electric furnace (RKEF) smelter projects valued $2 billion to $3 billion. He did not give details.

(By Bernadette Christina Munthe and Fathin Ungku; Editing by Edmund Blair)