Huayou invests in battery materials company and Indonesia nickel-cobalt project

China’s Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt is investing almost US$211 million for a 38.6% stake in battery materials company Tianjin Bamo Technology.

Huayou is also partnering with electric vehicle battery maker EVE Energy and others in a circa $2 billion nickel and cobalt project in Indonesia.

Huayou would hold 20% of the Indonesian venture, tentatively called PT Huayu Nickel Cobalt, and would be the cobalt producer’s third battery nickel smelting project in Indonesia, Reuters reported.

It would be at Weda Bay on Halmahera island, where Huayou already partnered with Tsingshan Holding Group in a nickel sulphate project and was aiming to produce 120,000 tonnes of nickel and 15,000t of cobalt annually, the wire service said.

Indonesia is continuing to “aggressively pursue its domestic battery supply chain,” Benchmark Mineral Intelligence head of price and data assessments Caspar Rawles commented.

“Today alone – Huayou/EVE JV announce PT Huayu Nickel Cobalt in Weda Bay [and] Battery IBC and LGES announce 10GWh battery Megafactory,” he tweeted.

He noted it was a combined $3.3 billion of investment across both projects.

The moves come as battery mineral prices have started to surge this year on growing battery demand.

Huayou shares (SS: 603799) were up yesterday and flat in lunchtime trade today, at CNY92.95, to value it about CNY113 billion (US$17.6 billion).