American car manufacturer Ford announced last week that it has joined forces with Chinese company Huayou Cobalt and Indonesian mineral mining company PT Vale Indonesia in a joint venture to build a new nickel processing plant in Indonesia worth $4.5 billion. This investment is Ford’s first in Indonesia and demonstrates the growing appetite among car manufacturers for raw materials used in the production of electric vehicle batteries, according to Reuters.
Ford is not the only company seeking minerals in far-off Asia. Volkswagen, the largest European car manufacturer, also recently announced that it will invest €180 billion over the next five years in battery production and the procurement of raw materials, i.e., minerals needed for electric batteries.
The high-pressure acid leaching (HPAL) plant that Ford is investing in, in combination with the two aforementioned companies, will be located in the southeastern part of the country where Vale Indonesia operates a nickel mine. Indonesia, which has the world’s largest nickel reserves, is now trying to develop the industry to ultimately produce batteries and electric vehicles itself.
