Zhejiang Hailiang Co., the largest copper pipe and cable manufacturing company from China, is one step closer to opening its first copper foil factory in Indonesia, which is said to be the largest in Southeast Asia.
Zhejiang Hailiang Co. is the largest copper company with 21 production sites worldwide including the United States, Vietnam, Thailand, Germany and Spain. The company’s expansion to Indonesia is part of the company’s strategic push to expand into new energy products.
Construction of a copper foil factory
The factory will produce copper foil used for lithium batteries or rechargeable batteries, and will be built with an investment value of IDR 12.58 trillion (US$ 850 million).
The groundbreaking ceremony will be carried out in the third or fourth week of June 2023. Meanwhile, construction will be carried out in two stages each in 2025 and 2027. The factory is predicted to have a production capacity of up to 50,000 tons of lithium battery copper foil.
“With the national capacity we can actually supply it. [But] This needs to be strengthened by investment in battery factories that can support our ecosystem,” said Septian Hario Seto, Deputy for Mining and Investment Coordination at the Coordinating Ministry for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries.
In addition, he explained that the raw material for copper foil products comes from copper cathode produced by PT Freeport Indonesia’s smelter in Gresik, East Java.
Import problem
Currently, Indonesia is trying to encourage the domestic production of electric vehicle batteries. However, some of the components used in electric vehicle battery production are still imported.
Taufiek Bawazier, Director General of the Metal, Machinery, Transportation Equipment and Electronics (ILMATE) Industry, said that Indonesia still relies on imports for a small portion of battery raw materials despit the face that most of the raw materials come from Indonesia.
“This means that to produce a battery, 93% of the raw materials are available in Indonesia, while the remaining 7% is the lithium. Maybe we need to import it,” he said.
The government estimated that with the electric vehicles development target set for 2030, Indonesia will need 758,693 tons of lithium to power 2 million units of electric cars and 13 million units of electric motorbikes.
“So that a total of 758 thousand tons of lithium is needed for car batteries and electric motorbikes,” said Dadan Kusdiana, Director General of New, Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation (EBTKE) at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources.
Furthermore, Kusdiana calculated that Indonesia will need 25,133 tons of nickel in 2025, 37.699 tons in 2030, and 59.506 tons in 2035.
