Posted on 26 Nov 2024
French miner Eramet sees Chinese partners as crucial to producing nickel at competitive prices and running profitable operations.
“I don’t think you can do without [Chinese companies],” Jérôme Baudelet, chief executive of Eramet Indonesia, told the Financial Times. “The risk is not being competitive and to have a much higher capex. So you have to be pragmatic.”
Eramet operates the Weda Bay nickel mine in Indonesia in partnership with Chinese giant Tsinghan Holding Group. The open-pit operation on the island of Halmahera entered production in 2019, and last year reached a record-high volume of 36.3 million wet tonnes, Kallanish Power Materials notes.
The mine, touted as the largest nickel operation in the world, is majority-owned by Tsingshan. The PT Weda Bay Nickel joint venture, which also includes local state company PT Antam, opened a nickel ore smelting plant using pyrometallurgical/RKEF technology in 2020. It can produce 30,000 tonnes/year of nickel.
According to Baudelet, Chinese technology, expertise and equipment are essential to enable profitability amid the ongoing market rout. “They also have economies of scale in all the equipment they build for those plants,” he was quoted as saying.
Tsinghan’s high-pressure acid leach (HPAL) technology has transformed the nickel industry, enabling the production of battery-grade nickel products from low-quality ore that would otherwise be used in steelmaking. Western companies trying to deploy the technology in places including New Caledonia and Australia have struggled due to high costs and technical issues.
“You can actually be profitable as a western company if you have the plant built by a Chinese [company], and maybe get the operations done in that particular plant by the Chinese, because they have built a lot of expertise,” Baudelet adds.
Earlier this year, Eramet and German chemicals giant Basf scrapped plans for a joint nickel-cobalt refining complex in Weda Bay. Eramet said it would focus on ore mining, while Basf explained supply options had evolved, and it did not need to make such substantial investment to secure supply of battery-grade nickel. There was no economic sense for the $2.6 billion project.
Eramet was contacted for comment.
Source:Kallanish
