Antam Wants To Capture Great Opportunities For Nickel Downstream

Illustration. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - PT Aneka Tambang (Persero) Tbk or Antam (ANTM) does not want to miss the huge market opportunity from downstream nickel, especially related to the development of the electric vehicle industry ecosystem.

Antam Syarif Corporate Secretary Faisal Alkadrie in the webinar "Strategi Achieves Investment Target 2023 by Encouraging Downstreaming" Wednesday, March 29, explaining that SOEs have been carrying out downstream activities since the 1970s. However, the focus of downstream nickel is only on the stainless steel industry.

"We have entered the steriization, in nickel there are two lanes, some are downstream nickel class two (second class nickel) for the stainless steel market. And for first class nickel, recently the market has increased so we don't want to miss this. We will realize the downstream nickel class one for EVs (electric vehicles)," he said, quoted by Antara.

Syarif believes that the development of the electric vehicle battery ecosystem as the goal of downstream nickel will actually materialize. The reason is, the global market potential for EV batteries is very promising in the future.

"We see that Indonesia is also a country with a good economy and has a strong position, world number one reserve, the market also has great potential for EVs and we will be more competitive because we build from upstream to downstream," he said.

Syarif said Indonesia has nickel reserves of around 21 million tons, around 21 percent or the largest reserves in the world.

"We ourselves have 4.8 million tons of reserves, or about 5 percent of the world's reserves. This is our strength that must be monetized, one of which is through downstream EV batteries," he said.

Syarif added that Antam has a vision to become a global company in 2030 in the electric vehicle battery ecosystem from upstream to downstream.

Antam also played a role on the upstream side of mining activities. As for downstream, Antam formed a collaboration with MIND ID, PLN, and Pertamina under the name Indonesia Battery Corporation (IBC).

Kami menyadari Indonesia punya kekuatan reserve tapi secara kapabilitas membutuhkan dukungan pihak lain. Oleh karena itu kami mengembangkan ini dengan partner strategis, ungkapnya yang saat ini telah bekerja sama dengan LG Energy Solution dan Hong Kong CBL Limited (HKCBL).