Indonesia has banned exports of nickel ore since 2020, which has spurred investment in processing facilities of the metal. Merdeka Battery Materials, another Indonesian nickel miner and smelter owner, is also considering a domestic listing to raise between $500 million to $1 billion, according to an IFR report. ($1 = 15,340.0000 rupiah) (Reporting by Dewi Kurniawati; Additional reporting by Fransiska Nangoy and Gayatri Suroyo; Editing by Martin Petty)
(Corrects MHP, ferronickel output capacity in paragraphs 3, 4
and solar panel capacity in paragraph 8)
JAKARTA, March 17 (Reuters) - Indonesian nickel company
PT Trimegah Bangun Persada (TBP), part of conglomerate Harita
Group, aims to increase its processing capacity using some of
the proceeds from a planned initial public offering in April,
its top executive said on Friday.
On Wednesday TBP, also known as Harita Nickel, announced it
wanted to raise $650 million in the IPO, though it had obtained
regulator's approval to sell up to 15.12 trillion rupiah
($985.66 million) worth of shares.
The company in its partnership with China's Lygend Resources
currently operates a high pressure acid leach (HPAL) plant in
Indonesia's eastern Obi island, with an output capacity of
55,000 tonnes of mixed hydroxide precipitate (MHP).
It has subsidiaries that operate ferronickel smelters with a
combined total capacity of 305,000 tonnes per year.
TBP's planned investment will add 12 more lines to produce
ferronickel and three more lines for MHP, chief executive Roy
Arman Arfandy told a news conference.
"(TBP) is strategically positioned to benefit from the
growing need for batteries in the electric vehicle industry, in
response to energy transition initiatives. This will increase
demand for both nickel ore and MHP," Roy said.
The company also has a long term plan to build a stainless
steel factory in 2025, he said.
Seeking to appeal to environmental conscious investors, TBP
plans to invest in a 300 megawatt-peak solar power plant in
2025, its executives said, adding its facilities do not dump
tailings into the sea.
TBP recorded a 4.3 trillion rupiah profit in January to
November 2022, three times its profit in the same period a year
earlier, according to company statement.
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