According to sources, the Ceria Nugraha Indotama (CNI) group is preparing two nickel smelters, one of which will be completed in 2024. CNI Group's project, which has received the status of National Strategic Project (PSN) and National Key Project of the government, is located in Kolaka County, Southeast Jiangsu Province, with an investment of $2.31 billion or 35.68 trillion .
Derian Sakmiwata, President of CNI Group, explained that the high demand for nickel in the global electric vehicle industry made the nickel downstream policy the right choice. The smelter under construction will use two main technologies. The first is the rectangular rotary kiln electric furnace (RKEF) technology, which has a capacity of 4×72 MVA and consists of four production lines for processing sapropelic nickel ore. The second is the high pressure acid leaching (HPAL) of laterite nickel ore (lower grade nickel ore) to produce electric steam batteries.
The target is to complete the first channel of the rotary-kiln electric furnace smelter by 2024, complete high pressure acid leaching by 2026 and start production."
The total capacity of the rotary-furnace nickel smelter will be about 252,000 tons of ferric nickel (FeNi) with 22% nickel, equivalent to 55,600 tons of nickel, Mr. Delian said.
