Chinese battery manufacturer Contemporary Amperex Technology Co Ltd (CATL) began construction of a new electric vehicle (EV) battery plant in Indonesia, in partnership with local company Indonesia Battery Corporation (IBC). The two companies have formed a joint venture called PT Contemporary Amperex Technology Indonesia Battery (CATIB) to build and operate the US$ 1.2 billion facility near Karawang, in Indonesia’s West Java Province.
The initial stage of construction is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2026, with a production capacity of around 7 gigawatt hours (GWh) of lithium-ion batteries per year for domestic and overseas EV manufacturers. Production capacity will be more than doubled to 15 GWh per year by the end of the decade, according to Energy Ministry spokesperson Dwi Anggia.
The battery plant is part of a broader integrated EV battery manufacturing and supply chain project valued at US$ 6 billion in total, originally signed in 2022. This includes the establishment of battery minerals mining and smelting operations in East Halmahera, North Maluku Province, by the ANTAM-IBC-CBL Consortium led by state-owned mining company PT Aneka Tambang Tbk (ANTAM), as well as the establishment of battery mineral processing operations, including high-pressure acid leach (HPAL) processing, for the production of battery precursors and cathodes.
North Maluku is rich in mineral resources such as nickel, cobalt and copper. A pyrometallurgical smelter is scheduled to begin operations by early 2027, with an annual capacity of 88,000 tons of refined nickel per year, while a hydrometallurgical smelter will have a production capacity of 55,000 tons of mixed hydroxide precipitate annually by 2028. A facility will also be built to produce Nickel Cobalt Manganese (NCM) cathode materials with a capacity of 30,000 tons per year from 2028.
The government has set a target for Indonesia to produce around 600,000 battery electric vehicles (BEVs) per year by 2030. The plant will also produce batteries for energy storage systems (ESS).
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