Top Battery Makers Discuss $20 Billion Indonesia EV Plans – by Eko Listiyorini and Harry Suhartono (Bloomberg News – October 14, 2020)

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/

(Bloomberg) — Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. and LG Chem Ltd., two of the world’s top producers of batteries for electric vehicles, have signaled they may join projects that could see $20 billion more invested in supply chains in Indonesia, according to the country’s government.

The firms signed separate heads of agreement with Aneka Tambang Tbk last month aimed at manufacturing higher value products for batteries from the state-owned miner’s nickel output, said Septian Hario Seto, deputy for investment coordination and mining at the coordinating ministry for maritime affairs and investments.

It’s a strategy that would involve development of new capacity for metals processing to battery pack assembly, according to Seto. “This is a race on technology,” he said in an interview. “LG Chem and CATL are two front-runners in lithium battery technology.”

Indonesia holds almost a quarter of global reserves of nickel, a key metal for electric cars, and is seeking to use that advantage, along with cheap power prices and low-cost manufacturing, to build a domestic battery industry.

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