China's GEM eyes nickel, cobalt output from Indonesia by August 2020 (updated)

Hanwa

05/11/2019 04:15

(Adds detail)
    YICHANG, China, Nov 5 (Reuters) - Chinese battery firm GEM
Co Ltd  002340.SZ  expects to start trial production at its
Indonesian nickel and cobalt plant in August 2020, its president
said on Tuesday. 
    The plant is expected to start full operation by the end of
next year, GEM's president and board chairman, Xu Kaihua, told
reporters at a nickel and cobalt conference in China. 
    The plant being built by GEM and its partners - which
include stainless steel and nickel maker Tsingshan, a unit of
Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd  300750.SZ , and Japanese
trading house Hanwa Co Ltd  8078.T  - is sited in Indonesia's
Morowali Industrial Park and will be the country's first to
produce chemicals for use in batteries for electric vehicles. 
    The plant will have the capacity to treat 50,000 tonnes a
year of nickel raw material, to produce 20,000 tonnes of mixed
hydroxide precipitate and 30,000 tonnes of nickel sulphate, GEM
said. 
    Production will come online in phases, with 30,000 tonnes a
year of production by end-2020, and 20,000 tonnes of annual
output added the following year, Xu told reporters. 
    Xu said the $700 million budget for the plant was "no
problem", adding that a tailings dam, currently going through an
approval process, would raise the overall cost.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL8N24339B 
     

 (Reporting by Tom Daly in Yichang; Writing by Mai Nguyen and
Dominique Patton; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Tom Hogue)
 ((mai.nguyen@thomsonreuters.com; +6568703518; Reuters
Messaging: mai.nguyen.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))