Earthworx Indonesia has completed an Interim Technical Report on PT Konstruktor, a laterite Nickel Cobalt asset held as part of the group. This laterite ore will be processed and available as part of a mixed feed strategy to our planned UK plant. In conjunction with Hatch and the UK Government’s Automotive Transformation fund is in the final stages of a feasibility study for an electric vehicle battery recycling plant in Teesside processing waste from 150,000 EVs direct to Cathode Active Material.

The plant is designed with a mixed feed of NMC, LFP and LCO waste with the optionality to supply a mixed hydroxide precipitate of nickel-cobalt from primary origin for imbalances in quality and quantity.

The advantage and our differentiation in full primary supply chain control is full traceability of world class ESG and carbon, which is very important to us and OEMs, as well as the lowest cost option of feed compared to competitors.

There are a number of reasons Altilium Metals is progressing a mixed feed strategy to its mega scale recycling UK plant.

• In the near term, “pure” recyclers coming into the market, particularly in regions where overcapacity is being built, are going to have problems securing feed. Also, recyclers that cannot offer full circularity in the battery supply chain to OEMs and return metal chemicals for reuse in new cell production, for example P-CAM, CAM could have problems securing end-of-life supply.
• Variability in “black mass quality” from a portfolio of suppliers (gigafactories, general recyclers/shredders) needs to be smoothed out, one way to do this is the addition of primary raw materials. We are seeing scrap waste can have a large variability in quality which can be a problem for refiners.
• Ability to tailor battery chemistries for cell manufactures, for example a modern NMC 811 is high nickel, low cobalt. The tsunami wave of end-of-life batteries coming on to the market later this decade will be lower nickel chemistries, for example NMC 111 as a scrap population.

Earthworx Indonesia is a Jakarta based exploration and resource development company.