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you want to have access to a large supply of nickel you can’t ignore Indonesia.” Q&A with Eramet’s Geoff Streeton.","if-you-want-to-have-access-to-a-large-supply-of-nickel-you-cant-ignore-indonesia-qa-with-eramets-geoff-streeton","article/if-you-want-to-have-access-to-a-large-supply-of-nickel-you-cant-ignore-indonesia-qa-with-eramets-geoff-streeton",{"_uid":557,"date":558,"tags":559,"editor":563,"content":573,"excerpt":825,"featured":51,"reporter":826,"_editable":830,"component":831,"seo_title":553,"categories":832,"visibility":836,"author_company":49,"featured_image":837,"seo_description":825,"author_full_name":49,"author_job_title":49,"formattedDate":841,"formattedArticleDate":842},"9e96ce6c-f082-4901-88ec-ff7bcc615f76","2023-11-20 00:00",[560],{"slug":561,"name":562},"qa","Q&A",[564],{"slug":565,"name":566,"content":567},"didi-bostock","Didi Bostock",{"job_title":568,"image":569,"bio":571,"linkedin":572},"Editor - Energy Transition & Economics",{"filename":570},"https://a.storyblok.com/f/287943243085208/512x512/2c5ca5c1a3/didi-bostock.jpeg","Didi is the Energy Transition & Economics Editor at Benchmark, covering a broad range of markets across the energy transition. His remit spans from downstream sectors such as BESS and EVs, through to midstream such as new technologies and battery production, to upstream critical minerals mining. He also leads on financial analysis across these supply chains, alongside in-depth policy analysis.\n","https://www.linkedin.com/in/didi-bostock-656342198/",{"type":574,"content":575},"doc",[576,583,588,603,608,621,626,631,638,643,648,653,658,663,668,673,678,683,688,693,698,703,708,721,726,735,740,752,765,770,775,780,785,790,795,800,805,810,815,820],{"type":577,"attrs":578,"content":579},"paragraph",{"textAlign":49},[580],{"text":581,"type":582},"Eramet is one of Europe’s largest and oldest mining companies. ","text",{"type":577,"attrs":584,"content":585},{"textAlign":49},[586],{"text":587,"type":582},"It can trace its history back to 1880 when Société Le Nickel (SLN) was founded in New Caledonia. It has also been mining manganese in Gabon since 1996. ",{"type":577,"attrs":589,"content":590},{"textAlign":49},[591,593,601],{"text":592,"type":582},"Now the company is looking to supply metal to the global battery markets, from its Centenario-Ratones ",{"text":594,"type":582,"marks":595},"lithium",[596],{"type":597,"attrs":598},"link",{"href":599,"uuid":49,"anchor":49,"target":49,"linktype":600},"https://www.benchmarkminerals.com/price-assessments/lithium/portal/","url",{"text":602,"type":582}," project in Argentina and Weda Bay nickel mine in Indonesia. ",{"type":577,"attrs":604,"content":605},{"textAlign":49},[606],{"text":607,"type":582},"Both mines are developed in partnership with the Chinese stainless steel producer Tsingshan. ",{"type":577,"attrs":609,"content":610},{"textAlign":49},[611,613,619],{"text":612,"type":582},"This month the company also opened a pilot plant close to Paris, in order to demonstrate its technology for ",{"text":614,"type":582,"marks":615},"recycling",[616],{"type":597,"attrs":617},{"href":618,"uuid":49,"anchor":49,"target":49,"linktype":600},"https://www.benchmarkminerals.com/forecasts/recycling/reports/",{"text":620,"type":582}," lithium ion batteries. ",{"type":577,"attrs":622,"content":623},{"textAlign":49},[624],{"text":625,"type":582},"The company plans to invest EUR 1.9bn ($2 billion) between 2024 and 2026, in both its existing assets as well as its battery minerals projects.",{"type":577,"attrs":627,"content":628},{"textAlign":49},[629],{"text":630,"type":582},"Geoff Streeton is chief development officer at Eramet. He previously worked for BHP and Mitsubishi. Geoff started his career as a geologist at the Mount Isa mines in Australia. Benchmark Source sat down with him to learn more. ",{"type":632,"attrs":633,"content":635},"heading",{"level":634,"textAlign":49},4,[636],{"text":637,"type":582},"Can you talk about your strategy to move from producing industrial metals to those targeted at clean energy? ",{"type":577,"attrs":639,"content":640},{"textAlign":49},[641],{"text":642,"type":582},"As a company over the last five years, we’ve developed two key strategy pillars.",{"type":577,"attrs":644,"content":645},{"textAlign":49},[646],{"text":647,"type":582},"Our first pillar is the existing business of supplying metals to meet growing global economic demand, supplying manganese to the global steel industry, ferronickel to the global stainless steel sector and titanium minerals … and that remains a core aspect of our strategy today. They generate the cash that we can then also use to deploy investment into our second pillar, which is where we see more growth potential: the emerging transition metals market.",{"type":577,"attrs":649,"content":650},{"textAlign":49},[651],{"text":652,"type":582},"And effectively, the leverage that we have in this emerging transition metals market is that over the last 10 to 15 years we’ve built a portfolio of resource projects that can provide into this market. ",{"type":577,"attrs":654,"content":655},{"textAlign":49},[656],{"text":657,"type":582},"The two projects that are most important for us are the Weda Bay nickel project in Indonesia, where the nickel laterite mine that we have developed provides both saprolite that can go into producing nickel pig iron for the stainless steel sector, but it can also produce limonite that is now starting to be extracted and processed into the Class One nickel market through high pressure acid leach (HPAL) projects.",{"type":577,"attrs":659,"content":660},{"textAlign":49},[661],{"text":662,"type":582},"The second key transition metal project in our portfolio is to provide lithium from the Centenario-Ratones project developed over the last 15-odd years in Argentina.  ",{"type":577,"attrs":664,"content":665},{"textAlign":49},[666],{"text":667,"type":582},"Those projects position us to provide nickel units or lithium carbonate that can feed directly into this emerging and rapidly growing transition metals market.",{"type":577,"attrs":669,"content":670},{"textAlign":49},[671],{"text":672,"type":582},"Our intent is to continue to invest in growing those business themes through further brownfield expansion projects, continuing to invest in the Weda Bay nickel mine to meet the considerable demand of the industrial park that is developing on Halmahera island in Indonesia and to expand lithium production capacity at Centenario-Ratones. ",{"type":577,"attrs":674,"content":675},{"textAlign":49},[676],{"text":677,"type":582},"We have also radically changed our portfolio, divesting out of a number of loss making downstream metallurgical assets.",{"type":577,"attrs":679,"content":680},{"textAlign":49},[681],{"text":682,"type":582},"So we no longer have significant drags on our balance sheet and are now primarily a mining company.",{"type":632,"attrs":684,"content":685},{"level":634,"textAlign":49},[686],{"text":687,"type":582},"You are currently working on building a high-pressure acid leach (HPAL) nickel processing plant with BASF in Indonesia. How will you compete with the Chinese companies such as Huayou Cobalt on costs, especially capex? ",{"type":577,"attrs":689,"content":690},{"textAlign":49},[691],{"text":692,"type":582},"I think it’s more than just the capex, they’ve actually figured out the engineering of these plants: how to actually get them to work, to perform to design. There’s been a long, difficult, history of value destruction in HPAL projects over the last 20 years. ",{"type":577,"attrs":694,"content":695},{"textAlign":49},[696],{"text":697,"type":582},"We need to have a project that can compete with the Chinese owned plants and our strategy to achieve that is to actually use the same engineering, the same engineering companies, the same construction providers that has been used by the groups such as Huayou.",{"type":577,"attrs":699,"content":700},{"textAlign":49},[701],{"text":702,"type":582},"We recognise that we can’t engineer a competitive HPAL plant without using the same engineering input that has gone into the projects that have been successfully developed over the last five years and are proven from an engineering and performance perspective. ",{"type":577,"attrs":704,"content":705},{"textAlign":49},[706],{"text":707,"type":582},"Our project delivery model would be based on accessing Chinese engineering and Chinese contractors. In order to have a plant that is very similar in design and construction to what has been constructed by Huayou and others. The project would utilise ore from the Weda Bay nickel mine. ",{"type":577,"attrs":709,"content":710},{"textAlign":49},[711,713,719],{"text":712,"type":582},"If approved into investment our project with BASF will be socially and environmentally compliant. We will have dry stack ",{"text":714,"type":582,"marks":715},"tailings",[716],{"type":597,"attrs":717},{"href":718,"uuid":49,"anchor":49,"target":49,"linktype":600},"https://source.benchmarkminerals.com/article/opinion-overcoming-mining-waste-issues-will-be-key-to-indonesias-nickel-ambitions",{"text":720,"type":582},", the most stable storage method. Plus, we are very focused on water and emissions and mine site rehabilitation. The plant needs sulphuric acid and to produce this you burn sulphur and the byproduct of that is heat which can be used. Typically we can co-generate two thirds of the plant’s energy requirement by burning sulphur. So compared to nickel produced through pyrometallurgy it will have much lower emissions. ",{"type":577,"attrs":722,"content":723},{"textAlign":49},[724],{"text":725,"type":582},"Our observation is that the OEMs are taking a wait and see approach – but if you want to have access to a large supply of nickel you can’t ignore Indonesia.",{"type":577,"attrs":727,"content":728},{"textAlign":49},[729],{"type":730,"attrs":731},"image",{"id":49,"alt":732,"src":733,"title":49,"source":49,"copyright":49,"meta_data":734},"","https://a.storyblok.com/f/287943243085208/b75058b308/bm-indonesia-nickel-supply-1.png",{},{"type":632,"attrs":736,"content":737},{"level":634,"textAlign":49},[738],{"text":739,"type":582},"Your Centenario-Ratones Lithium project in Argentina is set to start production early next year. What makes your Direct Lithium Extraction technology (DLE) superior to others? ",{"type":577,"attrs":741,"content":742},{"textAlign":49},[743,745,750],{"text":744,"type":582},"Our DLE has been the subject of over a decade of research and development, and innovation. We’ve been operating an industrial demonstration plant on the ",{"text":746,"type":582,"marks":747},"salar",[748],{"type":749},"italic",{"text":751,"type":582}," for over four years now, which has achieved a very high performance. ",{"type":577,"attrs":753,"content":754},{"textAlign":49},[755,757,763],{"text":756,"type":582},"In terms of the specific characteristics of our ",{"text":758,"type":582,"marks":759},"DLE",[760],{"type":597,"attrs":761},{"href":762,"uuid":49,"anchor":49,"target":49,"linktype":600},"https://source.benchmarkminerals.com/article/opinion-is-direct-lithium-extraction-the-industrys-shale-moment",{"text":764,"type":582},".",{"type":577,"attrs":766,"content":767},{"textAlign":49},[768],{"text":769,"type":582},"First of all it has a very good lithium recovery rate, close to 90%. And it has a very good selectivity. These brines don’t just contain lithium chloride, they contain all sorts of dissolved metals, sodium and other metals. Our process is very good at selectively extracting the lithium chloride. ",{"type":577,"attrs":771,"content":772},{"textAlign":49},[773],{"text":774,"type":582},"It also has a lower reagent consumption, the chemical reagents such as acids used in the separation process. They are the major source of the scope 3 emissions of lithium production through DLE, as these chemical reagents all have their own underlying emissions profile.",{"type":577,"attrs":776,"content":777},{"textAlign":49},[778],{"text":779,"type":582},"The main area of focus for us now is in driving down the freshwater consumption associated with our process. We’ve already identified opportunities to reduce freshwater consumption by about 50%, from when the project was first designed. That is for us as much of an area of focus for our research and development going forward as it is how to actually improve the lithium extraction characteristics of the DLE.",{"type":632,"attrs":781,"content":782},{"level":634,"textAlign":49},[783],{"text":784,"type":582},"You recently agreed a $400 million lithium marketing deal with Glencore, will commodity traders become an attractive source of capital for battery mineral projects? ",{"type":577,"attrs":786,"content":787},{"textAlign":49},[788],{"text":789,"type":582},"It enables both of us to gain a win. Glencore is looking to expand in its trading and offering of lithium carbonate products but don’t have a captive source so we are able to provide them with the ability to build their trading book. On the other side we were looking for a flexible source of capital. The arrangement provides us with pre-financing we can use for general corporate purposes. We got a very competitive source of capital through this. ",{"type":577,"attrs":791,"content":792},{"textAlign":49},[793],{"text":794,"type":582},"We will co-market this product together: we gain the benefit of Glencore’s very extensive trading and marketing capability, and that’s an important step for us – we don’t have an existing lithium production operation, so we don’t have an existing lithium marketing position.   ",{"type":577,"attrs":796,"content":797},{"textAlign":49},[798],{"text":799,"type":582},"I think one of the challenges in critical metals is there’s a lot of companies and governments seeking to secure supplies and the one risk we run into is that could then lead to a less efficient market because there’s less liquidity in the market, if production is locked up in offtake-type contracts rather than sold into a market exchange. I think traders like Glencore will play a very important role in improving liquidity and matching supply and demand.",{"type":632,"attrs":801,"content":802},{"level":634,"textAlign":49},[803],{"text":804,"type":582},"Your CEO has said that Europe is “lagging behind” in terms of critical minerals, what does Eramet mean by that? ",{"type":577,"attrs":806,"content":807},{"textAlign":49},[808],{"text":809,"type":582},"I think what’s changed in the last year or just a little over a year now since the Inflation Reduction Act was announced, is that the US has put in place a very strong incentive structure to trigger the inflow of critical minerals and metals into the US economy. The EU Critical Raw Materials Act probably doesn’t yet have enough horsepower to compete with the IRA … the challenge for Europe is that it does not have significant domestic sources of these minerals. ",{"type":577,"attrs":811,"content":812},{"textAlign":49},[813],{"text":814,"type":582},"So therefore, it’s going to be dependent on international projects and accessing international projects. And they probably need to think further around what they can do to put in place mechanisms that can compete with the IRA and attract project flow into the European economy. ",{"type":577,"attrs":816,"content":817},{"textAlign":49},[818],{"text":819,"type":582},"There’s a very important role for country-to-country approaches, but at the end of the day, the bulk of mineral projects are held by commercial companies, and it ultimately becomes company to company transactions that dictate who develops projects, who finances projects. and who buys the product. ",{"type":577,"attrs":821,"content":822},{"textAlign":49},[823],{"text":824,"type":582},"Country-to-country agreements can only provide a mechanism to encourage companies to talk but you still need to have the incentives, the sources of capital, be it tax incentives or fiscal incentives that enable European companies to be competitive in going out and competing with American companies and others in accessing critical mineral projects.","Eramet is one of Europe’s largest and oldest mining companies. It can trace its history back to 1880 when Société Le Nickel (SLN) was founded in New Caledonia. It has also been mining manganese in Gabon since 1996. Now the company is looking to supply metal to the global battery markets, from its Centenario-Ratones lithium […]",[827],{"slug":565,"name":566,"content":828},{"job_title":568,"image":829,"bio":571,"linkedin":572},{"filename":570},"\u003C!--#storyblok#{\"name\": \"article\", \"space\": \"\", \"uid\": \"9e96ce6c-f082-4901-88ec-ff7bcc615f76\", \"id\": \"\"}-->","article",[833,834],{"slug":594,"name":8},{"slug":835,"name":150},"nickel","private",{"id":49,"alt":732,"name":732,"focus":732,"title":732,"source":732,"filename":838,"copyright":732,"fieldtype":839,"meta_data":840,"is_external_url":51},"https://a.storyblok.com/f/287943243085208/b7a2c12e07/bm-portrait-geoff-streeton.jpg","asset",{"alt":732,"title":732,"source":732,"copyright":732},"Nov 20, 2023","20th November 2023",[],[],1792773907793]