Indonesian nickel company PT Ceria Nugraha Indotama is planning an initial public offering (IPO) in the first half of 2025 and is in talks to secure a stake sale to Glencore PLC ahead of the listing as Ceria sets out to build an $8 billion nickel complex.
The complex, which will encompass 11 processing plants, including two high-pressure acid leaching (HPAL) plants, will produce nickel products used in electric vehicle batteries.
To help raise financing for the projects, the company is in talks with lenders and potential strategic partners, while it prepares for the IPO, said corporate secretary Imelda Agustina Kiagoes.
“This is what we are working on with Glencore, to potentially enter through the holding company after the first HPAL,” she told Reuters on the sidelines of an industry conference held by Shanghai Metal Markets.
Glencore is also in negotiations to take part in the development of Ceria’s first HPAL plant to produce more than 146,000 metric tons of mixed hydroxide precipitate out of Ceria’s Southeast Sulawesi location, she said.
Construction for that plant is expected to begin by end-2024, she added.
Glencore declined to comment.
Ceria is aiming for the complex, which is expected to eventually produce nickel-cobalt sulphate, to be completed between 2028 and 2030, Kiagoes added.
(By Fransiska Nangoy and Mai Nguyen; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
