Electric vehicle giant Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) has inked a multi-year nickel supply deal with New Caledonia’s Prony Resources, which guarantees the US carmaker about 42,000 tonnes of the metal needed to produce the batteries that power its EVs.
Prony, which bought the loss-making nickel and cobalt operations in the French territory from Vale (NYSE: VALE) earlier this year, said it’s targeting production of 44,000 tonnes of nickel by 2024. That’s about double the expected 2021 output.
The deal was negotiated by Swiss commodity trader Trafigura, one of Prony’s main stakeholders, and it makes Tesla by far the miner’s largest customer, CEO Antonin Beurrier said.
The South Pacific archipelago of New Caledonia, 1,200 km (750 miles) east of Australia, was gripped by riots over the sale process of Vale’s local business in February, with protesters saying a locally led offer had been unfairly overlooked.
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