The Chinese mining company MMG Ltd. has decided to temporarily close its new cobalt processing plant in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) less than 15 months after its launch. This decision was driven by a historic decline in cobalt prices, a metal critical for electric vehicle battery production.

The project to construct an HPAL plant for processing nickel and cobalt is poised to be a milestone for Indonesia’s downstream raw materials industry. PT Merdeka Battery Materials secured a secured loan worth USD 1.4 billion to finance a new facility on the island of Sulawesi. The plant will produce nickel and cobalt chemicals used in the manufacturing of electric vehicle batteries. This strategic move comes at a time when Indonesia, responsible for over half of the world’s nickel production, is actively expanding its local refining industry amid falling nickel prices and constrained ore supplies.