Commodity trader Trafigura Group is investing in a South Korean refinery that will give it access to nickel products used in electric-vehicle batteries.
The trading house agreed to jointly invest about $140 million in the plant that’s being built by Korea Zinc Co.’s subsidiary Korea Energy Materials, it said Thursday. The facility, which will begin a test run next year, will produce battery grade metal from feedstocks including nickel matte and mixed hydroxide precipitate.
Commodity traders are increasingly turning to refineries to gain access to the battery supply chain, which has long been dominated by a clutch of miners and industrial conglomerates. For example, Glencore Plc has partnered with Morocco’s Managem to produce cobalt, while Trafigura is a backer of the Green Lithium project in the UK.
By investing in the plants and striking agreements to receive the specialist products needed for batteries, the trading houses are then able to ink deals with auto companies scrambling for key battery metals like cobalt, lithium and nickel.
Trafigura will get a 12.9% stake in Korea Energy Materials and supply the refinery with 20,000 to 40,000 tons of nickel feedstocks per year. It will also have an offtake right to the precursor nickel produced there.
Part of that nickel supply could come from some of Trafigura’s other investments in the market — it’s part of a consortium that owns the Goro nickel mine in New Caledonia and is an investor in Finnish nickel producer Terrafame.
