(Yicai Global) July 22 -- Ford Motor has agreed to join China’s Huayou Cobalt and Brazilian miner Vale in building a nickel ore processing plant in Indonesia, ensuring a stable supply of battery materials to the US auto giant.

Ford will be a shareholder in the plant which will supply most of its nickel chemical needs, Zhejiang province-based Huayou, a major supplier of raw materials for lithium batteries, said late yesterday, citing the non-binding memorandum of cooperation the three parties signed recently.

The plant will supply Ford with battery compound materials containing about 84,000 tons of nickel every year, Huayou said, without providing investment or shareholding figures.

The partnership will bring the advantages of the three parties into full play, build a leading platform for nickel supply, and help Huayou boost cooperation with firms in the supply chain and expand the market share of its products, it added.

According to the deal Huayou penned with Vale Indonesia at the end of April, the plant will process limonite extracted from the Pomalaa mine to produce mixed hydroxide precipitate product using Huayou’s high-pressure acid leaching method.

The facility, which is expected to be completed in three years, will have potential annual output of 120,000 metric tons of nickel. Vale has the right to acquire up to a 30 percent stake in the project, but did not estimate the size of its investment.

Huayou is a supplier of ternary lithium battery materials and counts Tesla, Volkswagen, Renault-Nissan Alliance, Volvo Cars, and Jaguar Land Rover Automotive among its clients. The firm’s shares [SHA: 603799] closed 1.4 percent up at CNY88.85 (USD13.12) today.

Editor: Futura Costaglione