South Korea's LG energy solution broke ground on a nickel processing plant in Indonesia on Wednesday as part of the company's plan to invest $9.8 billion in Indonesia to produce electric vehicle batteries. At the ceremony held in Batang Industrial Park, Central Java province, LG new energy executives told Indonesian President Joko Widodo that the company would build a smelter with an annual output of 150000 tons of nickel sulfate at a cost of 3.5 billion US dollars.
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The company will also build a US $2.4 billion plant in Batang Industrial Park to produce 220000 tons of precursors and 42000 tons of cathodes every year. This will provide the main raw materials for the company's planned $3.6 billion 200 GWH battery plant in Karawang, an industrial town in West Java province.
Lee Bang soo, President of LG new energy, said that the company would sign an agreement with Aneka tambang (antam), the Indonesian state-owned miner, in September to jointly invest in a $300million nickel mine on the eastern Halmahera island to produce 16million tons of nickel ore.