POSCO Holdings to produce nickel in Indonesia

POSCO Holdings Inc., the holding company of the world’s sixth-largest steel maker, will directly produce nickel, a key material for secondary battery materials, in Indonesia, becoming the first domestic company to do so.

The South Korean company announced on Wednesday that it plans to establish a nickel smelting plant in Indonesia, which is the world's largest country in terms of nickel reserves and production.

The plant will produce nickel intermediates for use in secondary battery materials by melting nickel-containing ores. Nickel is considered a core material that determines the performance and capacity of electric vehicle batteries, and demand for nickel is rapidly increasing due to the rapid growth of the electric vehicle market.

According to the company, the nickel smelting factory is planned to be located in the Weda Bay Industrial Park, Halmahera, North Maluku, and will produce around 52,000 tons of nickel matte, which is enough to produce one million electric vehicles.

POSCO Holdings plans to invest a total of $441 million (590 billion won) and aims to start commercial production from 2025 after groundbreaking later this year.

"We will establish ourselves as a representative company of eco-friendly future materials by smoothly carrying out our core businesses, including secondary battery materials, lithium and nickel," said a company official.

Write to Hyung-Kyu Kim at khk@hankyung.com