February 28, 2025: Indonesian nickel producer Merdeka Battery Materials has secured a $1.4 billion loan for construction of a chemicals processing plant in the country.

The company said on February 24 the loan will help finance the building of a high-pressure acid leach (HPAL) plant, in the Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park, to produce nickel or cobalt chemicals as part of the EV battery production process.

A group of Thai and Indonesia banks provided the funding as part of a seven-year loan. The total cost of the project is around $1.8 billion.

Merdeka said the plant is designed to have a nameplate capacity of 90,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) of contained nickel in mixed hydroxide precipitate (MHP). 

Sulawesi Nickel Cobalt, which kick-started construction of the facility in January, will also operate the plant, adjacent to an existing HPAL with a 60,000tpa capacity of contained nickel in MHP. That plant is operated by Huayue Nickel Cobalt — a joint venture led by China-based Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt.

Merdeka president-director Teddy Oetomo said the new development would boost the firm’s goal of producing downstream battery materials to fuel the Indonesian government’s plans to expand domestic minerals and processing.

Indonesian president Joko Widodo said in 2022 that the country should capitalize on its position as a “key producer in the global lithium battery supply chain” to boost domestic investments in battery production and clean energy technologies.