The offtake agreement is for 100% of the future production of nickel ore grade 1.2-1.5% from one primary source in Sulawesi, Indonesia supplying enough supplementary feed for 10 years of production at the planned UK Teesside Recycling Plant.

Indonesia is the world’s largest source of nickel holding 25% of the world’s reserves and Altilium has operated for several years in the battery metals sector here inserting its own ESG commitments with its partners.

Any pure battery recycler relying on spent battery and gigafactory scrap for ‘mega” scale recycling plants will struggle with feed in the early years, which will need to be supplemented with primary raw materials. Also, variability in black mass quality from a portfolio of suppliers needs to be smoothed out and one way to do this is the addition of primary raw materials.

Domestic recycling capacity needs to come online at scale to prepare for the tsunami wave of end-of-life batteries and provide a new source of sustainable raw materials which can be returned to local gigafactories. Altilium’s ambition is to create a low carbon battery materials value chain by embracing the “circular economy” with zero (or very little) mining for new materials.