South Korean corporations are counting on the US displaying larger flexibility over China’s position in electrical car provide chains, as they make investments closely — usually with Chinese language companions — in battery supplies manufacturing in Indonesia.

A $441mn funding final month by Korean metals big Posco in a nickel smelting plant on the Indonesian island of Halmahera has taken South Korea’s hard-cash dealmaking within the south-east Asian nation to greater than $3bn for the reason that begin of 2022, the majority of it being battery-related.

Indonesia is the world’s largest producer of nickel, an important ingredient that Korea’s main EV battery corporations want for the multibillion-dollar factories they’re constructing within the US.

But nearly all of Indonesia’s nickel manufacturing and processing is managed by Chinese language corporations, complicating Korean efforts to assemble a provide chain that fulfils US calls for for batteries freed from Chinese language possession of key parts.

“South Korea was planning to make use of Indonesia as a significant international hub for electrical car manufacturing,” mentioned Kyunghoon Kim, an affiliate analysis fellow on the Korea Institute for Worldwide Financial Coverage.

“However with out concessions from the US, will probably be troublesome,” he added. At greatest, Indonesia might find yourself “as a regional manufacturing hub”.

The US Inflation Discount Act provides billions of {dollars} in tax credit to battery corporations provided that a sure share of the worth of important minerals contained of their merchandise is processed or extracted within the US or by companions with free commerce agreements. 

Indonesia lacks a free commerce settlement with the US, and Washington is but to spell out the way it will outline the “international entities of concern” — a reference to China — that it desires to be phased out of the US battery provide chain by the start of 2025.

Korean funding has intensified beneath Indonesian president Joko Widodo, who carried out an export ban on uncooked nickel ore in 2020. The transfer spurred worldwide corporations to put money into nickel processing inside the nation’s borders, with a lot of these offers involving companions from mainland China.

South Korea’s LG Vitality Answer, the world’s main non-Chinese language producer of EV batteries, introduced a partnership in April final 12 months with Posco, two Indonesian state-owned corporations and Chinese language miner Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, with a sequence of investments that will finally complete $9bn.

Then, in November, a partnership was introduced between fellow Korean battery maker SK On with Korean cathode producer EcoPro and Chinese language battery part producer Inexperienced Eco-Manufacture to supply an intermediate nickel product referred to as blended hydroxide precipitate (MHP) on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.

Posco, whose chemical compounds subsidiary has a $33bn provide settlement with Korea’s different battery main, Samsung SDI, signed a preliminary settlement in February with Chinese language mining agency Ningbo Liqin to supply nickel and MHP on Sulawesi.

The issue, mentioned Tim Bush, a Seoul-based battery analyst at UBS, is the Inflation Discount Act has given corporations till the start of 2025 — simply over 18 months away — to finish the development of a brand new, “IRA-compliant” provide chain, regardless of them having no clear sense of what stage of Chinese language involvement will probably be permitted.

“This can be very troublesome for the Korean corporations to drag the set off on the multibillion-dollar investments that will probably be required to diversify their provide chain once they nonetheless haven’t been knowledgeable of the foundations of the street,” mentioned Bush.

In Might, the chief monetary officer of LG Chem, the father or mother of LG Vitality Answer, instructed traders its working assumption was that the US authorities would apply the identical definition of “international entities of concern” that it makes use of for laws in regards to the semiconductor business.

That might imply that joint ventures with a Chinese language fairness stake of over 25 per cent wouldn’t qualify for the credit, in impact excluding most of Indonesia’s nickel provides from the choice provide chains the US is hoping to construct.

“The Korean corporations have gone all-in on Indonesia and now they’re in a quandary,” mentioned Ross Gregory, Seoul-based govt director of EV consultancy New Electrical Companions.

Gregory additionally famous environmental issues surrounding carbon-intensive mining practices in Indonesia. “The chance is that the nickel they get will probably be each non-IRA compliant and never clear sufficient. They urgently have to diversify.”

Nonetheless, a Europe-based nickel dealer noticed that Indonesian nickel is discounted about 30 per cent in comparison with London Steel Change costs for various merchandise corresponding to Australian briquettes. 

“They’re sitting there saying we are able to’t survive [without it],” they mentioned. “I can keep on shopping for costly nickel or I can put myself within the sport to purchase the most affordable nickel on the planet.”

Posco, which took a 30 per cent stake in Australia’s Ravensthorpe Nickel in 2021, instructed the Monetary Instances that “we’re diversifying nickel sourcing to Australia and New Caledonia to cut back our dependence on Indonesia, though we’re not notably involved about our publicity to Indonesia”.

Earlier this 12 months, the US treasury issued tips that may make it simpler for Korean corporations to supply extra parts domestically. It implies that nickel merchandise sourced in Indonesia however processed in Korea might nonetheless be designated as IRA-compliant.

Jakarta can also be lobbying Washington for Indonesia to obtain a tailor-made commerce deal on important minerals much like one agreed with Japan in March.

A Korean battery govt who didn’t want to be named acknowledged that “we now have no possibility however to depend on Chinese language expertise and knowhow for nickel processing at low value”, however added this meant that Washington was more likely to undertake a definition of “international entities of concern” tailor-made to the precise wants of the battery business.

“If they are saying any three way partnership through which China holds even a 1 per cent stake is an entity of concern, the US may very well be strangling itself, as no firm would give you the chance truly to satisfy the Inflation Discount Act’s situations,” he warned.

Extra reporting by Harry Dempsey in London